thursday night opening – Movie Smack Talk

The ‘Mission: Impossible‘ franchise is the rare movie franchise that gets better with every movie released. Back in 2015, Rogue Nation scored a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned more than $600 million at the global box office.

Now, the sixth movie in the franchise is hitting theaters, and it’s sitting pretty with a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Mission: Impossible — Fallout is performing incredibly well with critics, and now thanks to its Thursday night preview, we know it’s performing well with the audience as well.

It earned $6 million on Thursday night and “that figure reps an all-time preview record for Tom Cruise,” which is hard to believe.

Experts predicted it’d take home $4 million on Thursday, so it’s already outperforming. Some people believe it could make $60 million during its opening weekend. If it hits that mark, it’ll set an opening weekend record for the franchise.

To compare, Jason Bourne made $4.3 million in Thursday night previews two years ago and went on to make $59.2 million during its opening weekend.

We’ll have to see how high the number climbs for Fallout.

We told you earlier this week that Marvel’s ‘Avengers: Infinity War‘ had a chance to earn the biggest opening weekend ever in box office history. It needs to make over $248 million, which is what ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ made in 2015.

It’s still too early to tell if it’ll hit that mark, but we do know it’s off to a lovely start.

During its Thursday night preview screenings, the film earned $39 million, which is the fourth-highest preview total in box office history. It’s the highest total for a Marvel title, easily beating the $27.6 million earned by ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron‘

Tracking still suggests Infinity War will make around $240 million this weekend, but there is still a chance it surprises everyone and becomes the first film ever to bring home $250 million during its debut weekend. It’s going to be a lot of fun to watch.

By the way, the film currently sits at an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the general audience seems to be pretty pleased with it so far. You should have no problem getting a ticket. Most major theaters are playing this movie every 30 minutes. Seriously.