SUMMER PREVIEW: MOVIES - Is It TOM CRUISE SEASON Again?

BY MUCH HOLLYWOOD reckoning, Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One will triumph over a crowded field to become this summer’s most financially successful domestic blockbuster. Even with multiple tentpole titles in competition, box-office analysts cite the Tom Cruise Effect™; last year, Top Gun: Maverick drew record numbers of moviegoers back into cinemas at a moment when industry observers wondered if that experience was headed for extinction. But Hollywood can get it wrong. Predicting which titles will break through at the box office, in the discourse, and in critics’ hearts is a fickle business—and we’re trying anyway. Here are our predictions for which films will pop at the ticket counter and stir up the conversation.

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The Franchise Installment That Will Make a Billion Dollars 

Fast X 

In theaters now

Like Mission: Impossible 7, this tenth installment of the $6.6 billion-grossing street-racing series is also a part one: “The beginning of the end of the road,” as Fast X’s trailer promises (with the franchise-concluding part two scheduled to drop in 2025). Unlike any previous entry in Cruise’s M:I oeuvre, however, the chronically underestimated Fast & Furious films have already crossed into three-comma territory twice before: 2015’s Furious 7 grossed $1.5 billion worldwide, and its immediate follow-up, The Fate of the Furious, took in $1.2 billion. Moreover, with a packed cast that pits new arch-villain Jason Momoa against Vin Diesel, Fast X continues the tradition of multicultural representation that has proved to be the secret sauce of the franchise’s success. Perhaps most crucially, the Louis Leterrier–directed F&F entry has been cleared by government authorities for distribution in China, the world’s biggest movie marketplace, while M:I has not.

- CHRIS LEE

The Franchise Installment That Will Stick the Creative Landing

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

In theaters June 30