‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ Leaps Toward Second Box Office Victory Over...

‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ Leaps Toward Second Box Office Victory Over ‘Christopher Robin’


Tom Cruise will prevail again at North American multiplexes this weekend with “Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” heading for an impressive $32 million second weekend, early estimates showed Friday.


Disney’s live-action “Christopher Robin” is heading for second place with a respectable $28 million at 3,602 screens. Lionsgate’s action-comedy “The Spy Who Dumped Me” will finish third with about $11 million. Fox’s opening of dystopian sci-fier “The Darkest Minds” is launching inauspiciously with about $7 million at 3,127 locations and will battle a trio of holdovers for fourth place — Universal’s third weekend of “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” Sony’s fourth weekend of “Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation,” and Sony’s third weekend of “The Equalizer 2.”


Dinesh D’Souza’s pro-Donald Trump documentary “Death of a Nation: Can We Save America a Second Time?” is performing in line with forecasts of about $3 million at 1,002 locations this weekend for Quality Flix.


“Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” the sixth film in the Paramount franchise, is screening at 4,395 sites and declining less than 50% from its opening weekend of $61.2 million. The action-thriller is also performing better than 2015’s “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation,” which won its second weekend over “Fantastic Four” with $28 million. “Fallout” should wind up the weekend with about $122 million in its first 10 days.


“Christopher Robin” took in $1.5 million in Thursday night previews, topping Disney’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” which opened with $1.3 million in Thursday previews and went on to a $33 million opening weekend in March.


“Christoper Robin,” based on the characters from A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books, hopes to draw nostalgia lovers and their children when it opens on 3,602 screens Friday. Ewan McGregor plays a sad adult version of Winnie the Pooh’s old pal Christopher Robin, so Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore come to life to help him regain his imagination. Reviews have been mixed to positive with a 63% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


Lionsgate-Imagine’s “The Spy Who Dumped Me” opens at 3,111 venues and stars Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon as best friends pursued through Europe by assassins. Susanna Fogel directed and co-wrote with David Iserson, while Justin Theroux, Gillian Anderson, Hasan Minhaj, and Sam Heughan round out the cast. “Spy” carries a 39% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.


Prospects are downbeat for Fox’s “The Darkest Minds,” which opens on 3,127 screens. The movie, which carries a $34 million price tag, is based on Alexandra Bracken’s novel and set in a dystopian America where a group of teenagers is on the run from the government after mysteriously obtaining superpowers. The film stars Amandla Stenberg, Mandy Moore, and Gwendoline Christie. Reviewers have been underwhelmed with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 15%.


With the top two films combining for about $60 million, overall domestic moviegoing should be up significantly over the same 2017 weekend, which was led by “The Dark Tower” with $19 million in its debut — marking the start of one of the slowest Augusts in more than a decade. Summer domestic box office is up a hefty 10.4% to $3.46 billion as of Aug. 1, according to comScore, and year-to-date domestic box office is also leading last year by 7.6% at $7.4 billion.