(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

“I was so scared I was sweating. I couldn’t even watch the monitor when we shot it.” Those are the words of renowned action director John Woo reflecting on working with Tom Cruise in 2000’s “Mission: Impossible 2.” Specifically, Cruise’s death-defying rock climbing stunt. It speaks volumes about the far-reaching nature of this franchise after all these years, and Cruise’s star power, that this scene is so easy to recall despite being in what is broadly considered to be a bad movie.

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While certain corners of the internet have offered a reappraisal of this movie in recent years, it’s by far the worst-reviewed “Mission: Impossible” movie to date, ranking as the only “Rotten” entry in the series on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet, it was also a huge hit, almost despite itself. It would also become arguably one of the most important movies in Cruise’s illustrious career, in retrospect, given what happened with this franchise in the years that followed.

In this week’s Tales from the Box Office, we’re looking back at “Mission: Impossible 2” in honor of its 25th anniversary. This article is also being published on the same weekend that “The Final Reckoning” is hitting theaters. We’ll go over how it came to be, where it went wrong, how it became a massive hit anyhow, what happened in the aftermath of its release, why its success became very useful for Cruise, and what lessons we can learn from it all these years later. Let’s dig in, shall we?

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The film centers on Ethan Hunt (Cruise), who must partner up with pro thief Nyah Hall (Thandiwe Newton) to stop a renegade agent named Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) from releasing a biological weapon dubbed the Chimera virus. The whole thing leads them on a globe-trotting adventure, with Hunt tasked with saving an unsuspecting world.

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On paper, the whole thing made a great deal of sense. Woo was coming off his American hit “Face/Off” and was already a celebrated action director. Cruise, meanwhile, was coming off of an impressive run that included the Oscar-nominated “Jerry Maguire,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” and “Magnolia.” Most importantly, the 1996 “Mission: Impossible” was a massive hit, taking in nearly $458 million globally against an $80 million budget.

This was at a different time in Hollywood when not every hit automatically got a sequel. Plus, Cruise was busy being the busiest, most in-demand movie star in the world. Still, Paramount eventually got around to signing up Cruise for the follow-up with Robert Towne (“Days of Thunder,” “The Firm”) penning the screenplay. It was all coming together rather nicely.

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It also helped establish the template these films would follow, with Cruise doing increasingly insane things on screen, for real, for our collective enjoyment. The rock climbing scene is a perfect example, with Cruise revealing earlier this year that he actually did the scene with a broken foot.

“There’s a section where I’m jumping high to low, but my foot was broken. And I never mentioned it to anyone. Some of these injuries, what’s the point? You just keep going. So I’m jumping, and my foot wasn’t right. John Woo was like, ‘We’ve got the shot.’ I was like, ‘No, we want it in one shot, I gotta keep doing it.’ And that’s the shot that’s in the movie.”

Joining Cruise would be the aforementioned Newton, with a cameo from Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins as Mission Commander Swanbeck. They also nabbed Dougray Scott as the villain, who was then very much on the rise. Unfortunately for Scott, commitments on this movie prevented him from being Wolverine in “X-Men,” with the role going to Hugh Jackman instead. Ving Rhames also returned as the hacker Luther, who remains a staple of the films to this day. Plus, Hans Zimmer signed on to provide the score.

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To whatever degree “M:I-2” makes sense on paper, it’s an example of how those elements don’t always come together to make a satisfying final product. Writing for /Film in 2021, Josh Spiegel pointed out that the film tried to turn Ethan Hunt into the American James Bond. Again, that’s a great pitch on paper. At that point, “James Bond” had endured as a franchise for nearly 40 years, dating back to 1962’s “Dr. No.” Why not make an American riff on the character?

What’s more early 2000s American than a soundtrack that includes songs from Limp Bizkit and Metallica? What’s more emblematic of the time than Cruise throwing a pair of Oakley sunglasses at the screen as they disintegrate? What was more Hollywood than taking a heralded Hong Kong filmmaker like Woo and plugging him into an established franchise with a huge A-list star? It’s easy to see the studio thinking at play here.

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Speaking of studio thinking, Paramount spent big here, with the sequel carrying a budget in the $125 million range. That would be roughly $230 million in today’s dollars. That just goes to show that Hollywood’s modern budget issues had been quietly bubbling up for a long time. Be that as it may, the slick (albeit dated) marketing effectively sold this movie as a must-see blockbuster to the masses. It proved to be money well spent.

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“Mission: Impossible 2” hit theaters on May 24, 2000 and, rough reviews be damned, it was a hit. It opened to $57.8 million over the weekend, with that number growing to $70.8 million when accounting for the Monday Memorial Day holiday. It easily bested Disney’s “Shanghai Noon” to top the charts. That didn’t include the more than $20 million the movie made on Wednesday and Thursday that week either.

It ranked as one of the biggest opening weekends ever up to that point. It would still be a couple of years before Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” would become the first movie to ever make $100 million in a single weekend. Cruise’s second go-around as Ethan Hunt didn’t have to surrender the top spot until “Gone in 60 Seconds” arrived in early June. It held well for most of the summer, only falling out of the top ten once “Scary Movie” arrived in early July.

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“M:I-2” finished its run with $215.4 million domestically to go with an even bigger $334.1 million internationally for a grand total of $549.5 million worldwide. That made it the biggest movie of 2000 overall, coming in ahead of Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” ($460.5 million).

Cruise left “Mission” behind for a while to make other big movies such as “Minority Report,” “Collateral,” and most importantly, “War of the Worlds.” It was during the press tour for Steven Spielberg’s 2005 remake of the sci-fi classic that Cruise famously went on “Oprah” and lost his mind about his then-future wife (now ex) Katie Holmes. That, coupled with his pushing of Scientology, put his career in jeopardy for a spell.

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It may seem hard to remember now, but there was a time when Cruise’s public image needed some serious rehab. As it just so happens, Cruise had a very successful franchise he could turn to. Enter “Mission: Impossible III,” which served as J.J. Abrams’ feature directorial debut. Abrams had previously turned down the opportunity to write “War of the Worlds,” but Cruise circled back to the man behind “Lost” and “Alias” when it came time to suit back up as Ethan Hunt.

Though not as successful as its predecessor, “M:I:III” was a solid hit, bringing in $399 million worldwide. It also set up a nice run for cruise that included “Jack Reacher” and “Edge of Tomorrow,” among others, culminating in yet another adventure as Ethan Hunt in 2011’s “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” becoming by far the biggest hit in the series to date with $695 million worldwide.

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It was at this point that “Mission: Impossible” became cinema’s go-to, great action franchise. None of this would have been possible if “M:I-2” hadn’t been such a big hit. 

Because it was, Paramount was happy to make another sequel, even though it took six years. They’ve been happy to make more of those sequels ever since. To date, the seven “Mission: Impossible” movies have made more than $4 billion collectively at the box office, peaking in 2018 with “Fallout” ($786 million worldwide).

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While 2023’s “Dead Reckoning” saw its budget balloon and global grosses drop to $571 million worldwide, it’s become a reliable moneymaker for Paramount and one of the studio’s marquee franchises. More than that, these movies have come to define Cruise’s impressive, decades-spanning career. Collectively, the actor’s movies have generated more than $12.7 billion. Nearly one-third of that has come from the “M:I” movies alone. Of the actor’s 10 highest-grossing movies, six of them are from this franchise.

By the time “The Final Reckoning” ends its run, that number will probably grow to seven, with only “Top Gun: Maverick” ($1.45 billion) standing taller. Though it is not a stretch to say that “Maverick” wouldn’t have become what it became without the success of the “Mission” movies over the last 25 years. Oddly enough, maybe none of this happens without “Mission: Impossible 2,” which is widely considered the worst entry in this beloved franchise. It is nothing if not fascinating to consider in retrospect.

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I can’t rightfully say that Cruise wouldn’t have found another way to rehab his image with the moviegoing public. He is Tom Cruise, after all. I can say definitively, though, that “Mission: Impossible 2” gave him a pretty obvious place to turn. “Audiences went there happily before, I bet they’ll go again.” That, in turn, gave him an ever-giving well that completely redefined his career over the last 20 years.

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It is maybe the most impressive enterprise ever built on the back of what is largely considered to be a bad movie. It’s not always the case, but in Hollywood, bad things can sometimes give way to good things. “Mission: Impossible” also stands as a shining example of how less can sometimes be more. “M:I-2” came out four years after the original. “M:I:III” happened six years after that. Scarcity created demand. It’s not unlike what Warner Bros. and Legendary have done with the MonsterVerse in recent years. More isn’t always more, is another way to look at it.

Beyond that, Cruise and Paramount did learn a wise lesson moving forward after this movie as it relates to this franchise. They no longer tried to make “Mission” into “Bond.” They allowed the series to firmly establish itself as its own thing. DC doesn’t have to be Marvel. Supernatural movies don’t need to be “The Conjuring.” Establishing one’s own identity is crucial. “Mission” didn’t have to be “Bond.” Now other movies want to be “Mission.”

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