Last week, Marvel Studios pulled “Deadpool 3” from its May 3, 2024 release date, leading many to speculate if more studios would soon shuffle their schedules. And as the SAG-AFTRA strike crosses the 100-day barrier, several blockbusters on next year’s release calendar for Paramount move to different spots. Is the biggest name moving? Deadline reports that “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two” will now open on May 23, 2025, instead of June 28, 2024, as that film needs to resume production.
That’s a wild thought, considering Christopher McQuarrie was shooting parts of “Mission: Impossible 8” during the COVID-19 pandemic. But given the scale of the sequel’s story (“Dead Reckoning – Part One” trotted the globe arguably more than any other “M:I” film), it makes sense that Tom Cruise & co. still need to wrap production. But “Dead Reckoning – Part Two” is one of the biggest on 2024’s calendar and certainly the biggest for Paramount, so pushing it ahead a year is big news. The silver lining here for the studio? The film’s Memorial Day 2025 release gives it access to IMAX screens. And Memorial Day weekend is a big one for Paramount: that’s when “Top Gun: Maverick” hit theaters in 2022, becoming the studio’s second-biggest box-office success ever at $1.49 billion worldwide.
“Dead Reckoning – Part One” didn’t do quite as well as Paramount hoped with audiences this summer, making only $567.5 million at the global box office. But if its sequel does as well, that’s a lot of money for the studio to push back a full calendar year-plus. A three-week run on IMAX theaters for “M:I 8” may buoy its success (i.e., it won’t have a film like Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer” to contend with on those screens), but its exit leaves a sizable gap in Summer 2024 Hollywood release. So what’s left at its June 28, 2024, release date next summer? Kevin Costner‘s “Horizon: An American Saga Chapter One” opens against Sony’s “Horrorscope,” which may be good news for Costner’s long-gestating Western epic. As for “M:I 8” and its new opening weekend, it will contend against an untitled Disney movie.
But moving its most anticipated film means Paramount has to shuffle other things on its 2024 calendar, too. Michael Sarnoski‘s “A Quiet Place: Day One” with Lupita Nyong’o and Denis Hare moves into the June 28, 2024 release spot from March 8, 2024. That opens things up for “Dune: Part Two” to reign supreme when it hits theaters on March 15, 2024. Meanwhile, John Krasinski‘s “IF” with Reynold Reynolds moves back a week from May 24 to May 17, 2024. That leaves “Furiosa,” “Garfield,” and “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” in a theater battle on Memorial Day next year, while “IF” faces off against an untitled Universal release. And one more schedule shift for Paramount: an untitled animated “SpongeBob SquarePants” movie moves from May 23, 2025, to December 19, 2024, pitting it against “Avatar 3.”
Of course, as the SAG strike wanes on, expect Paramount and other studios to shift things around even further. And with talks not improving between the actor’s guild and AMPTP, even this tentative release schedule will likely look different in just a few weeks. But Paramount moving something as big as “M:I 8” back a year tells moviegoers one thing: studios don’t anticipate things to improve between SAG and AMPTP any time soon, which means more schedule changes are almost certainly on their way.