The sixth entry in the Mission Impossible franchise is set for the biggest opening weekend in the 22-year-old action series. Tom Cruise is back for his sixth go around as IMF Agent Ethan Hunt, by all accounts the most critically acclaimed Mission Impossible film ever, the box office is painting a very successful looking picture.

Currently, Fallout is tracking a US opening weekend of an estimated $60 million, should that come to pass, Fallout would have set a new opening weekend record for the franchise. Currently, M:I 2 holds the record (really!) at $57.8 million with Rogue Nation coming pretty close with $55.5 back in 2015. I think we can all agree that John Woo’s overly stylised sequel is the creative low point in the franchise, but it still holds the domestic record for a Mission Impossible movie with $215 million more than eighteen years ago. Hopefully, Fallout will change that in the coming weeks.

Last year’s lacklustre The Mummy (remember The Dark Universe) and the well-received by largely avoided American Made suggested that Tom Cruise’s star power was on a steep decline. Add to that the less than sterling Jack Reacher 2, and Cruise’s status as one of the last ‘movie stars’ was in danger of being revoked. However, the stellar reviews and robust box office for Fallout has proved that Cruise is still a massive draw to audiences. It’s hard even to consider that the fourth instalment (Ghost Protocol) was originally set up for Cruise to exit the franchise and pass it onto Jeremy Renner. Thankfully, that never happened as nobody throws themselves into the insane stunts aspects of M:I like Tome Cruise.

Based on these early numbers, we should expect Mission Impossible 7 to be announced before the summer is finished. In the meantime, Tom Cruise is revisiting another iconic character with the long-gestating Top Gun 2 currently filming. Top Gun: Maverick is set for release on July 12, 2019.