At the end of 2018, Tom Cruise announced to Paramount studio that he planned to shoot two new Mission: Impossible films , parts 7 and 8, back to back.
However, Tom Cruise does not yet have the script for the first of the two films. It only has one treatment, that is to say a sort of summary of the plot of the film.
He asks Paramount to sign him a blank check, promising them that they won’t regret it, on the one hand, and that he will be reasonable with the budget, on the other.
Normally, a studio does not start production on a film without having the script. That’s the ba-ba. Because without a scenario, it is impossible to calculate the budget.
But Tom Cruise will still manage to take the studio with him.
“He is someone who has a lot of charm and infectious enthusiasm,” says a studio manager on condition of anonymity. He has immense power of persuasion. No one would have ever validated such expensive films without having validated the script, but Tom Cruise still managed to sign Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 with nerve. »
Unfortunately for Paramount, the pandemic hit, filming was halted and production costs skyrocketed. Mission: Impossible 7 was supposed to cost around 200 million and ended up at 290 million…
Its equilibrium point is therefore now at $900 million.
Knowing that the previous film in the saga (2018) had generated around 800 million at the box office (which was already 100 million more than the previous part), it will not be so easy to exceed 900 million with chapter 7…
The economics of blockbusters are tough. As soon as a film costs more than 200 million, the chances of making it a source of big profit decrease considerably.
Tom Cruise promised Paramount that the money lost on #7 would be made up with #8, currently being filmed, whose costs, shared with #7, should be much more modest.
To be continued…