'Mission Impossible - Fallout' Opening Night Box Office Sets Tom Cruise Movie Record

Tom Cruise has scored another big victory at the box office! Mission: Impossible - Fallout opened in theaters on Thursday night, and managed to rake in $6 million at the box office, marking a new "preview night" personal record for Cruise. Deadline reports that $1M of that figure was earned form IMAX screenings of the film.

The closest competitors were Cruise's previous two films, with Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation pulling in $4M in Thursday previews, and The Mummy earning $2.66M. It's a much-needed bounce-back for Cruise, who came out of 2017 nothing but disappointment, after Universal's big action/horror franchise launchpad The Mummy flopped, and Cruise's smaller prestige film, American Made, also underperformed (despite critical reviews).

Mission: Impossible - Fallout is currently sitting very pretty, with the franchise's best critical review score to date. Fallout is currently poised for a big opening weekend, as the film is leading Fandango's ticket pre-sales for the week, and is currently outpacing the entire Jason Bourne series. The Thursday returns have sparked a new estimate for opening weekend, with projections now in the $55-60M range. If Fallout can earn over $57.8M, it will set a new record for the franchise's best opening, beating Mission: Impossible II's Memorial Day opening back in 2000.

As for the film itself: many viewers are calling it the best installment since the first film. With some truly epic stunts, and big reveals that tie all the way back to the beginning of the series, it's certainly a must-see for fans have been invested for some time.

Synopsis: "Ethan Hunt and the IMF team join forces with CIA assassin August Walker to prevent a disaster of epic proportions. Arms dealer John Lark and a group of terrorists known as the Apostles plan to use three plutonium cores for a simultaneous nuclear attack on the Vatican, Jerusalem and Mecca, Saudi Arabia. When the weapons go missing, Ethan and his crew find themselves in a desperate race against time to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands."

Mission: Impossible - Fallout stars Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, Michelle Monaghan, Alec Baldwin, Wes Bentley, and Frederick Schmidt. It is now playing in theaters.