The Final Reckoning is 2025's Biggest Box Office Bomb

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning has officially crossed the $500 million global mark—$506.8M to be exact, with $340.5M of that coming from international markets. Sounds decent, until you remember this thing reportedly cost up to $400 million to make. And that's before marketing.

Using the industry rule-of-thumb (budget × 2.5 to break even), this movie likely needed to clear at least $1 billion to start turning a profit. So unless it somehow crawls to $600 million—and even that looks like a stretch—it could lose upwards of $400 million. That's a franchise-killing level of bad.

Even if you go with the low-end estimate—a $300 million budget—it's still a financial mess, with projected losses in the $150–200 million range. Either way, this isn't just a stumble. It's a nosedive.

Some people have pointed out that Paramount doesn't live and die by box office alone. These films make decent long-term money from streaming, licensing, and product placement. One report claimed that the first Mission: Impossible still pulls $10 million a year in streaming revenue. Fair enough. But long-tail earnings won't soften the short-term blow of spending nearly half a billion dollars and barely breaking even theatrically.

The only reason this movie—and its follow-up—got finished at all is because Top Gun: Maverick made Paramount nearly $400 million in profit. Without that cushion, the COVID delays, the industry strikes, and the escalating budget probably would've shut the whole thing down mid-production.

What's truly wild is that in 2025, a movie that makes half a billion dollars worldwide can still be considered a total bomb. But that's the math. And The Final Reckoning just became the new gold standard in losing big.