The Rise of ‘Mission: Impossible’ as a Top Movie Series for Dads

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning has been in theaters for almost a month, tracking to match its predecessors in box office success. Paramount hoped for a billion-dollar global hit to offset various delays that escalated the sequel’s budget, but the Mission: Impossible franchise has shown consistent performance, especially in the domestic market, typically around $200 million, give or take $25 million. Inflation means earlier entries were seen by more viewers, but it also aligns the somewhat lower-grossing Mission: Impossible III with the rest. Despite Tom Cruise’s efforts to defy aging with his stunts, these films are essentially Dad Movies, keeping their audience pleased but not reaching the frenzy of youth-driven blockbusters like Independence Day or Minecraft.

Dad Movies are often known for their modesty and lack of bombast, embracing old-fashioned qualities that many big movies have abandoned to chase grandiosity. Despite the hefty budgets of the MI movies, their audience is aging. While Top Gun: Maverick found immense success in 2022, fueling expectations for the Mission films, their Dad Movie essence kept them grounded. Now, even Top Gun: Maverick falls into the Dad Movie category as a sequel to a beloved Gen-X classic and Tom Cruise’s iconic role. Its broad appeal proves that billion-dollar success isn’t solely from dad viewership. Conversely, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning achieved results similar to that year’s Indiana Jones film, firmly establishing these series in dad territory.

These outcomes were unforeseen when the first Mission: Impossible movie drew criticism from older fans for deviating from the TV series, turning Jim Phelps, played by Jon Voight, into the antagonist. Brian De Palma’s film also set the tone by eliminating much of Ethan Hunt’s team and focusing more on Cruise’s character, a pattern solidified in Mission: Impossible II. This installment showcased a Cruise-centric approach, introducing Ving Rhames as a regular cast member and emphasizing a more individualistic narrative. The franchise evolved from teamwork to a more lone-wolf dynamic, departing from its original ensemble style.

But the series eventually circled back around to the idea of teams while retaining the convention that those teams would be mostly or entirely disavowed for fully half the entries, which appeals to the Dad Movie sensibility of flouting authority while still sticking to some well-organized chain of command. The Mission: Impossible movies are able to offer that, plus a James Bond-style comfort watch – and surprisingly, given that Bond movies used to arrive with clockwork regularity, Ethan Hunt has become the more reliable spy. Over the past decade, there have been four Christopher McQuarrie-directed Missions, and just two Bond movies; remarkably, the Mission series is purportedly ending, and yet still feels more active at the moment than Bond. Ethan Hunt started off as a sleek, streamlined, Cruise-y update on the Bond archetype; now he’s Bond reborn as a Christ figure.

McQuarrie may be the key; he eventually brought a kind of masculine solemnity to the series that better matches it to Dad Movie action classics than the more playful, mischievous energy of Brian De Palma or Brad Bird. If that has sometimes sent the movies into a Cruise-worshiping self-seriousness, it also lends them a snarkless sincerity that probably appeals to older audiences. The Final Reckoning reaches a Dad apex by circling around to offer a tacit apology for the Jim Phelps business, turning Dad Movie fixture Shea Whigham into a new, non-nefarious Phelps figure – he’s the son of the movie’s Phelps, you see – allowing him to share a moment of manly acknowledgment with Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. A redemption through fatherhood! That doesn’t actually involve any on-screen parenting! (Very few Dad movies do, whether you want to chalk that up to escapism or avoidance.) What could be stereotypically Dadlier? This may not have been McQuarrie’s primary mission, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been accomplished. Whatever the future-dad version of TBS Bond marathons turns out to be, it may be playing Ethan Hunt on a loop instead.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.