Missed This in Dead Reckoning? Your Zodiac & Tom Cruise’s Secrets Demand a Rewatch Before The Final Reckoning Blows Your Mind!
Added on May 19, 2025 inEntertainment News Cards, Movie News Cards
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Alright, let’s just take a moment here—Tom Cruise gearing up to drop what might be his final Ethan Hunt escapade, and it’s taken him five whole years to get this beast off the ground. I’m not saying the guy’s got stamina, but if perseverance were an Olympic sport, Cruise would have a gold medal, a trophy, and a followers’ parade by now. And hey, with Mercury in retrograde (again, really?), one can’t help but wonder if the cosmos themselves are testing the “mission impossible” vibes of this release—after all, time slows, plans go sideways, and drama? That’s just the universe’s way of keeping things spicy.
So here we are, staring down Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, a direct sequel to that box office rollercoaster Dead Reckoning, which, bless its heart, didn’t exactly light up the charts like an inferno. A $300 million budget, production hiccups thanks to a global pandemic, a fan-favorite character’s shock exit, and the “Barbenheimer” tidal wave stealing spotlight? Yeah, it was a perfect storm—and now all eyes are peeled to see if this sequel can pull off a comeback worthy of a spacewalk on the Burj Khalifa.
Does this final chapter live up to the gargantuan expectations? Will it deliver the pulse-pounding, eagle-eye stunts Tom Cruise is known for, or has the weight of five years of chaos caught up with our favorite IMF agent? Frankly, I’m here for the popcorn and cosmic irony… because when the heavens throw curveballs, so does Ethan Hunt, and neither likes to quit. Buckle up—this mission could be the one that writes history (or movie legend).
The release of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning marks the culmination of the biggest undertaking of Tom Cruise’s professional career. Regardless or whether or not it turns out to be the last entry into the series, and Ethan Hunt’s final mission, it wraps up an epic two-film storyline. By the time it hits theatres, it will have taken up a full five years of Cruise’s career, with him working on little else since the first of the two films, Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning, started production in 2020. And, with us having seen the new film last week, we can confirm that it’s a direct continuation of the previous film’s storyline. With so much riding on this movie, now is a good time to look back at the last entry, which, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, failed to live up to expectations at the box office, putting pressure on this sequel to overperform.
Now, it should be noted that Dead Reckoning was not the first Mission: Impossible movie to open to a relatively cool reception at the box office. Back in the summer of 2006, Mission: Impossible 3 was supposed to be the blockbuster hit of the year, but Cruise’s stardom had taken a beating the year previously, thanks to some oddball press appearances which put the focus on his Scientology beliefs over the movies he was promoting. Indeed, the movie still ranks as the lowest-grossing installment in the franchise, with only $134 million in domestic grosses, which failed to match the budget and was significantly less than what the first two films had made. It kicked off perhaps the worst period of Cruise’s career, followed by a rare slew of flops that included Knight and Day, Valkyrie (very underrated), and Lions for Lambs.
Yet, the Mission: Impossible series also proved to be Cruise’s box office redemption, with him launching a fourth film, Ghost Protocol, which was an all-or-nothing attempt to do a soft reboot of the series. It took Ethan Hunt to far-flung international locales, and emphasized incredible stunt work performed by the star himself, with that film famous for Cruise climbing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. While the buzz had been that Jeremy Renner’s character, William Brandt, was meant to be an eventual replacement for Hunt, no one leaving the theatre after Ghost Protocol had any doubt over whether or not the series still belonged to Cruise. It was a much-needed box office hit for Cruise, as were the two follow-ups, Rogue Nation and Fallout, which saw the directorial reigns taken over by Christopher McQuarrie, and the envelope pushed even further in terms of action.
By all accounts, Dead Reckoning was a killer as far as production goes. It likely would have gone fine had its shoot not coincided with the worldwide pandemic, bringing everything to a standstill. The movie had been in production for about forty days when the pandemic reached its boiling point, leading to a months-long hiatus. In the meantime, the movie lost the actor who was set to play the young antagonist, Nicholas Hoult, leading to major re-writes, where Esai Morales eventually took over the reconfigured role, where the baddie, Gabriel, was now a former colleague of Ethan’s from his younger days.
One thing worth noting is that all eyes were on Dead Reckoning as it was shot, as no one quite knew how a movie such as this could be shot amid a quarantine, leading to much tension on the set. This all hit the breaking point when audio leaked of Cruise having a meltdown on set over violated safety protocols, where he reaffirmed the fact that the movie industry, as a whole, was on the edge of a virtual complete shutdown. He said that people back home were looking at them as a way to go forward, and if they were shut down, it could spell disaster for every other big movie that was trying to shoot safely. The leaked audio actually bolstered Cruise’s popularity, and it’s worth noting that when his long-delayed Top Gun: Maverick, which had been shot pre-pandemic, finally hit theatres in 2022, it was one of the first monster hits of the pandemic era, and Cruise’s most popular film to date.
However, all of this on-set chaos led to Dead Reckoning having a massive budget that approached the $300 million mark. Thus, it had to clear an enormous hurdle to be considered profitable when it opened. Sadly, the movie fell victim to a few unforeseen events that seriously hampered its business. One was the SAG/AFTRA strike, which meant that Cruise, despite his pleas for an exception, had to cut short his worldwide publicity tour, badly impacting the global box office (it also led to a huge shooting delay for The Final Reckoning, leading to it being delayed a full year). Another issue was that movie didn’t resonate with audiences the way other instalments had, with many disliking the fact that it was only part one of a two-film saga, which left many people feeling that by the time the credits rolled they hadn’t gotten a whole experience, even if it was the longest movie of the series to date, and had some of the biggest action scenes ever film. Audiences also were upset that Rebecca Ferguson’s fan favourite character, Isla Faust, was killed off, while the movie also fell prey to the Barbenheimer phenomenon that took over theatres only a week after Dead Reckoning came out.
Of the two movies, it was Oppenheimer that really cut into Dead Reckoning’s box office. While Fallout had been shot for IMAX, with large-scale, IMAX-aspect ratio enhanced sequences, Dead Reckoning was shot conventionally, and only optimized for IMAX after the fact, without the aspect ratio increase. This underwhelmed many fans who shelled out good money to see it in that format, and couldn’t compare to Oppenheimer, which took over IMAX screens and had been shot in the full IMAX aspect ratio.
But rather than pull the plug on the next movie, the choice was made to abandon the idea of releasing the film as Dead Reckoning Part 2. It was also slated to have action scenes shot in the full IMAX aspect ratio, making it one of the more anticipated movies to come out that way this summer.
As it stands, The Final Reckoning is much anticipated by fans of the series and of Cruise’s. If it does mark the end, one has to look at the entire saga as Cruise’s largest undertaking, with the one-two shooting of the Reckoning films the most ambitious thing he’s ever done. Whether or not it pays off remains to be seen, but one must admire Cruise’s dedication to his craft and the art of epic movie-making.
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