Mission: Impossible has been gracing our screens for nearly 30 years now, and despite the billing of a final entry, Ethan Hunt shows no signs of slowing down, continuing that iconic run this Memorial Day weekend with a series-best opening.

With eight entries across three decades, the Mission: Impossible audience has seen a great deal of growth. We’re looking back across recent entries to see not only where audience behaviours have shifted, but how cinemas can use these trends to target their marketing to the most effective audience for the film’s theatrical run.

An explosive opening for an explosive ending

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning saw the series’ best opening day, and best opening weekend performance at the box office, even exceeding 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which held the previous record for the franchise.

On opening day, The Final Reckoning saw a domestic result of $24.8M, well above the previous instalment—Dead Reckoning Part One—which grossed a $15.5M result, and ahead of the pre-pandemic Fallout’s $22.8M. This extended into the long weekend, with a 3-day domestic gross of $63M, still ahead of both previous instalments and setting the record for the franchise.

While The Final Reckoning didn’t top the box office for its opening weekend, with Lilo & Stitch taking the top spot, it contributed to the biggest Memorial Day weekend domestic box office result of all time. (A record which Tom Cruise previously held with Top Gun: Maverick)

Frequency — the marker of blockbuster appeal

A hallmark of a true blockbuster audience is that of a high Infrequent audience—meaning moviegoers who attend the cinema 2 or fewer times in 6 months. These Infrequent moviegoers make a massive impact on box office when they turn out for a title, and those that can draw a highly Infrequent audience open a great deal of opportunities for cinema marketers.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning saw a boost at both ends of the audience frequency spectrum in its opening weekend, with a high level of attendance from both Infrequent—the least frequent category of moviegoers—and Very Frequent—the highest frequency—audiences. This shows excellent appeal both to those who need a big title to draw them off the couch, and those who are long-time cinephiles that love the movies.

The benchmark for Infrequent attendance on an opening weekend for all films is 27.6%, a measure The Final Reckoning exceeded by nearly 10 percentage points at 36.3%.

Compared to Dead Reckoning Part One, which opened to a 29% Infrequent audience, The Final Reckoning is gearing up to have a wider audience appeal, something that is also reflected in its opening weekend demographics.

The industry’s increasing diversity

A large component of the Mission: Impossible audience have been long-term fans of the franchise, possibly since its very beginnings stealing the NOC List. As such, the Mission: Impossible audience has been steadily aging over its instalments. Much like Top Gun: Maverick compared to the original Top Gun, moviegoers over the age of 35 accounted for more than 70% of The Final Reckoning’s audience.

However, this ageing audience of long-term fans hasn’t come at the expense of newcomers, and The Final Reckoning’s audience follows trends of increasing diversity in audiences that reflect what we want to see on screen.

The US Moviegoer Report, which Vista Group published earlier this year, showed that the US moviegoing audience is increasingly diverse, responding to the increasing diversity of representation and film offerings on the big screen.

The Final Reckoning saw an especially high attendance from both Latinx and Asian audiences, at 20.8% and 9% respectively, compared to the benchmark for all films of 19.8% and 4.3%. This gave The Final Reckoning a much more diverse audience than the opening weekends for either previous instalment.

Reflecting changes from pre-pandemic

The US Moviegoer Report studied changes over the past few years in audience behaviour, and the evolution of Mission: Impossible’s audience has exemplified a few of these changes clearly. Not only is diversity increasing in audiences, but The Final Reckoning highlights the return of Very Frequent moviegoers.

Very Frequent moviegoers dropped in attendance and audience makeup significantly after 2019 with the impact of the pandemic of the cinema industry, and while the numbers of these most frequent moviegoers have been rising since their lows of 2020 and 2021, they are still on average significantly lower than in 2019.

This is why The Final Reckoning’s draw of 6.5% Very Frequent moviegoers is of significance, exceeding not only 2023’s Dead Reckoning Part One, but exceeding that of Fallout in 2018, pre-pandemic.

Making an event of the end

Movie marketers have a great deal of opportunity in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, with the instalment billed as the end of the series, there is a strong appeal to marketing the film as a real event.

Group attendance was significantly higher than the benchmark for opening weekends, with groups of 3+ ticket purchases comprising 27.5% of the audience, and groups of 5 or more making up 7.2% of those, compared to just 4.1% and 3.5% for Dead Reckoning Part One and Fallout, respectively.

Likewise, large format screenings are performing well, with IMAX in particular making up 18.1% of tickets for the opening weekend, compared to the benchmark of 3.83% for all movies.

In the end, The Final Reckoning is showing a franchise high start, and carries a great deal of opportunity for movie marketers to lean into the stunts, the event of a franchise end, and the seemingly endless star power of Tom Cruise.

For more moviegoer insights, learn more about Movio Research, read the US Moviegoer Report’s study into moviegoer evolutions in the 2020’s, or hear the audience analysis from the latest episode of the Behind the Screens podcast below.

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*Frequency is based on a moviegoer's six-month session count:

< 2 = Infrequent
2-5 = Occasional
6-25 = Frequent
26+ = Very Frequent