Here Come Fast X, Tom Cruise, and a Summer of Big, Big Movies

Here Come Fast X, Tom Cruise, and a Summer of Big, Big Movies,Here come ‘Fast X,’ ‘Barbie,’ Tom Cruise, and a season of big, big movies. And in a post-’Maverick’ glow, any of them could break through to be the biggest — at the box office, in the discourse, in critics’ hearts, and beyond.

Here Come Fast X, Tom Cruise, and a Summer of Big, Big Movies

By much Hollywood reckoning, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (out July 12) will triumph over a crowded field to become this summer’s most financially successful blockbuster. Even with multiple tentpole titles poised to pop on a global scale — The Flash, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Disney’s live-action version of The Little Mermaid among them — box-office analysts cite the inalienable power of the Tom Cruise Effect™ in predicting this seventh installment of the $3.57 billion-grossing, 27-year-old franchise will reach the financial mountaintop during moviedom’s traditionally lucrative season. They point to what Boxoffice Pro’s Shawn Robbins refers to as the “post-Maverick glow”: the halo effect of last year’s Top Gun: Maverick, which not only drew record numbers of moviegoers back into cinemas at a precarious post-pandemic moment but more generally is credited with reigniting the cultural love affair with sharing a communal spectacle — and oxygen — in a darkened auditorium at a moment when many industry observers wondered if the theatrical moviegoing experience was headed for extinction.

But Hollywood can get it wrong. Predicting which titles will break through — at the box office, in the discourse, in critics’ hearts, and on awards bodies’ watch lists — in the hottest months on the calendar can be a fickle business. But every year, we try anyway. Here are Vulture’s predictions for which films will pop at the ticket counter and stir up the conversation during the dog days of 2023.

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The Franchise Installment That Will Make a Billion Dollars

Fast X

Photo: Warner Bros.

Ezra Miller’s ongoing self-inflicted troubles may be enough to sink The Flash, but Warner Bros. is taking another risk that has been less scrutinized by the terminally online: It’s bringing to the screen a remixed version of The Flashpoint, an important, highly critiqued cross-universes comic book event that led to a revamp of the DC Comics universe and paved the way for the New52, a mistake on so many levels that the company is still shaking it off. I’ve heard buzz that The Flash is much better than the trailers would have you believe, but that’s beside the point in a market in which superhero films aren’t rewarded for being good so much as being inoffensive. The Flash may not win the summer entirely, but I have a suspicion that WB’s big bet on a controversial adaptation will perform better than expected and set the stage for James Gunn to remake this cinematic universe for the better. —A.J.B.

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And Yes, The Brand Too Big To Fail

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One

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We no longer have movie stars; we have carefully managed, smooth-to-a-fault brands. And no actor exemplifies this shift more than Tom Cruise. The seventh and penultimate entry in the Mission: Impossible world will be something even bolder than a simple franchise installment — it will be the most powerful and successful brand-management extension project this summer will see. (Though I’d also bet it will become the most successful at the box office.) After Top Gun: Maverick’s financial and critical success, Cruise proved he has a keen understanding of what audiences desire in their biggest blockbusters, demonstrating a death drive that theatergoers (including me) find wildly curious. Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell did it with dogfights, and superspy Ethan Hunt will do it with international foot chases. With Christopher McQuarrie on writing and directing duties once more and a sprawling cast of character actors and burgeoning stars to support Cruise, Mission: Impossible 7 promises the same kind of blissfully bombastic entertainment — albeit this time globe-trotting — that it took to lure people back into theaters in 2022. This year, M:I 7 will solidify Cruise as a shiny action-movie product that can’t fail. —A.J.B.