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Bruce Hall: I almost hate to say this, but it's possible this franchise has just continued to improve. I personally loathed the first installment, and the John Woo version was...well...never mind. But I reluctantly enjoyed part 3, and I enjoyed it a lot. There's no denying that MI:4 has raised the bar, at least action wise. As far as the story is concerned, we're all going to forget it by the time we get home, so all I ask of a film like this is that it's fun, I can follow it, and that there is at least a minimum level of logic present.

Mission Accomplished.

As far as the IMAX aspect of this goes, I tend to fall in line with the argument that while portions of the film were specifically designed to "pop" in this format, the primary effect was positive word-of-mouth. There's nothing like good buzz for a big budget action film, and I think that we're going to see more attempts made to follow this template. Who can say whether or not it will work, but I think we all can agree that to a large extent, it did here.

Max Braden: This result doesn't surprise me at all; I think the only reason I might not have picked M:I4 to be number one was some reluctant acceptance that Chipwrecked was going to rake in undeserved heaps of money. I suppose in a year of lackluster superhero movies that audiences could have suspected that this fourth Mission:Impossible was just cashing in on the brand. I think putting the movie out on IMAX first helped back up the point that this was going to be a major must-see action film. For my money, it was totally worth it.

David Mumpower: My opinion is that the IMAX-exclusive tactic only works if there are two key elements to a film's release. The first is that it has to have tremendous quality. This is the aspect of Ghost Protocol that I felt was being dismissed as relevant the week of its release. I guess I understand why people were doing so since Mission: Impossible III is phenomenal yet it still wound up being roundly ignored by consumers. Still, I felt this was a project that was being underestimated. This leads to the second element, which is that building word-of-mouth through IMAX is a waste of time if a film is going to go wide almost immediately anyway. Yes, the exhibitor and distributor thereby maximize profit margin during the week of exclusivity but it doesn't help in any other discernible manner. What Ghost Protocol has demonstrated is that if demand is intensified prior to wide release, during a period such as the 12 days of box office or maybe the week of July 4th when consumers have massive amounts of free time, a movie can ride that box office tide to dominant results. This is the second element. There has to be a calendar configuration wherein the heightened awareness leads to larger dividends. Such a release tactic wouldn't make sense in say February or October, I wouldn't think (prove me wrong, Hollywood) but it's a sublime tactic for mid-December. I firmly believe MI4 would have done very well no matter what, but I don't believe it beats the Sherlock Holmes sequel without this particular strategy employed. Paramount Pictures brilliantly maximized Ghost Protocol's box office potential in this regard.

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