Posted on 06/25/2010 6:07:51 AM PDT by C19fan
While 20th Century Fox is the studio sweating it out hoping Knight and Day overcomes lackluster tracking to turn in respectable 5-day opening numbers, Paramount brass is paying close attention. That’s because the studio just received the screenplay for the new Mission: Impossible 4 penned by Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec. I've learned that Brad Grey and Rob Moore are reading the script over the next few days and figuring out the preliminary budget next week on the Brad Bird-directed fourquel. Cruise reprises his Ethan Hunt role and produces with MI3 director JJ Abrams. But what effect if any will Knight and Day’s box office have on the new pic? Paramount insiders tell me no decisions have been made yet. But Hollywood has been buzzing that the studio might kill MI4 if Knight doesn't connect with audiences despite Cruise's action hero character.
(Excerpt) Read more at deadline.com ...
I wouldn’t say poison, he’s had plenty of stuff be successful. The primary problem with MI3 was it was just too expensive, with a $150 million budget it would have had to be the most successful film of the franchise to break even, most franchises the higher the number of the film the lower the number of the grosses. Had MI3 cost $80 million like MI1 it would have broken even.
The problem with MI* is not Tom Cruise’s fault, it’s the studio’s. The Studios are little more than graverobbers. They buy the rights to a series, then slap a stupid script on it that has nothing to do with the movie.
What made the original succeed was a great cast and sheer luck. The series was about the three Bs (no, not those three Bs) Brains, brawn, and beauty. The movies have failed because the scripts have not even come close to the original series.
You never find another Martin Landau (and those classic Brioni shirts), Greg Morris (who chained smoke through ever episode), and of course the honeytrap I always wanted to step in, even as a 6 year old, Barbara Bain. The show is too intelligent for movie goers today.
The last MI-* I saw infuriated me when the bad guy was of course the US.
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