After six movies, 22 years, countless bruises and a broken ankle, Tom Cruise's death-defying Mission: Impossible stunts continue to pay off at the box office.
Mission: Impossible — Fallout easily took the No. 1 spot on the domestic charts this weekend. Paramount Pictures estimates that it earned $61.5 million (Dh226) from 4,386 North American theatres.
Not accounting for inflation, it's a best for the long-running franchise, which has grossed $2.8 billion worldwide, and one of Cruise's biggest too (just shy of War of the Worlds $64.9 million debut in 2005). Internationally, the film earned $92 million from 36 markets which is also a franchise best.
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, Fallout has scored some of the best reviews in the series and has been in the news cycle for almost a year. Talk about the film started early, in August of 2017, when Cruise broke his ankle performing a stunt in London with video to prove it.
"Paramount was strategically perfect in their marketing and publicity game," said comScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "They showed how important a star's presence is in marketing the movie early on. Tom Cruise broke his ankle and they made that into a positive for the movie — it fed the Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible mystique."
Second place went to Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, which fell 57 per cent in its second weekend in theatres, to earn $15 million. It was a much steeper decline than the first film, which dropped only 36 per cent between its first and second weekends.
Denzel Washington's The Equalizer 2 slid to third with $14 million in weekend two, and Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation took fourth with $12.3 million.
The animated Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, a feature spinoff of the Cartoon Network television show about Robin and some of the lesser-known DC superheroes was the only major film to open against Fallout. The Warner Bros. release earned $10.5 million and landed in fifth place.
The film earned positive reviews from critics and younger audiences, but also faced a fair amount of animated competition from both Hotel Transylvania 3 and Incredibles 2, which is still going strong in its seventh weekend and headed toward the $1 billion mark. As of Sunday the Disney/Pixar sequel had earned an estimated $996.5 million globally.
But although $10.5 million might seem on the lower side, Teen Titans also cost only $10 million to produce.
"Family movies like this will play for a lot of weeks," said Warner Bros.' domestic distribution president Jeff Goldstein. "The whole objective of this movie was to work with our cousins in other Warner units for brand identification."
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theatres, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released on Monday.
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Read more:
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Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
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Company profile
Company: Rent Your Wardrobe
Date started: May 2021
Founder: Mamta Arora
Based: Dubai
Sector: Clothes rental subscription
Stage: Bootstrapped, self-funded
TWISTERS
Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Starring: Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos
Rating: 2.5/5
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital
HER%20FIRST%20PALESTINIAN
%3Cp%3EAuthor%3A%20Saeed%20Teebi%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EPages%3A%20256%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EPublisher%3A%C2%A0House%20of%20Anansi%20Press%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Most F1 world titles
7 — Michael Schumacher (1994, ’95, 2000, ’01 ’02, ’03, ’04)
7 — Lewis Hamilton (2008, ’14,’15, ’17, ’18, ’19, ’20)
5 — Juan Manuel Fangio (1951, ’54, ’55, ’56, ’57)
4 — Alain Prost (1985, ’86, ’89, ’93)
4 — Sebastian Vettel (2010, ’11, ’12, ’13)
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
