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'Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation' wins box office, a sequel is on the way

'Rogue' came in first at the box office, while the comedy 'Vacation' came in second. 'Rogue' actor Tom Cruise recently said work on a sixth 'Mission' movie has begun and a Paramount executive confirmed that the movie is in development.

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David James/Paramount Pictures/AP
'Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation' stars Tom Cruise.

The newest “Mission: Impossible" film came in first at the box office this past weekend, grossing $56 million domestically.

“Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” stars Tom Cruise as well as Rebecca Ferguson and actors who have recently joined the franchise like Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg. 

“Vacation,” which stars Ed Helms and Christina Applegate and is a sequel to the 1980s comedy “National Lampoon’s Vacation," did okay, grossing more than $14 million over the weekend and coming in second place.

The newest Marvel superhero film “Ant-Man” and the animated family movie “Minions” both held on, coming in third and fourth at the domestic box office, respectively. The Adam Sandler comedy “Pixels” came in fifth.

And apparently the “Mission: Impossible” movies aren’t going anywhere. When Cruise appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” the actor said of a sixth film, “We're starting to work on it now. We'll probably start shooting it next summer.” Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures, reiterated in an interview that a sixth “Mission” film is moving forward. “We're very happy to be developing this movie with Tom," Moore said. "There's no question that [‘Mission’ protagonist] Ethan Hunt deserves another film.”

If a sixth film does indeed happen, the “Mission” franchise stands out as being inspired by a currently unlikely source: a TV show. Hollywood has recently been mining mostly books for blockbuster inspiration, particularly young adult novels, as seen with the success of the “Harry Potter,” “Twilight,” “Hunger Games,” and “Divergent” films. Counting comic books as written material as well, almost all of the top 10 domestically highest-grossing films of 2014 came from a book – “American Sniper,” the highest-grossing movie of the year, came from Chris Kyle’s memoir of the same name, while the second-highest-grossing movie was the newest “Hunger” film and the third- and fourth-highest-grossing were the comic book movies was “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”

However, others will soon be trying to launch a movie based on a 1960s TV series – the movie “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” starring Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, is set to be released later this month. With the success of “Mission,” we’ll see if more classic TV shows are mined for film, though if they do try, studios may be learning a lesson in how to adapt them from previous failures. The 2013 movie “The Lone Ranger” was one of Disney’s biggest bombs ever and was criticized for how the Native American character Tonto was portrayed. The 2005 movie "Bewitched," which had a meta plotline involving actors filming a "Bewitched" remake, didn't do well either. “Lone” seemed to indicate that if a classic TV show is going to be the basis of a movie, the story also has to be updated for contemporary audiences, while "Bewitched" showed that the plot of a movie adaptation couldn't be so far from the original story that it confuses viewers.

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