Skyfall has crossed $300 million domestic! A closer look sees James Bond near the top of the action-film record books.

Sony is reporting that Skyfall grossed $260,000 yesterday, which was just enough to put its domestic total over the magic $300 million mark.  Putting that in perspective, this means that Skyfall has nearly doubled the previous domestic-best gross of the 007 series, the $168 million grossing Quantum of Solace and the $167 million-grossing Casino Royale.  Now that it's theatrical run is pretty much finished (it's got $5 million left in the tank, at the absolutely most), let's look at how it did in the grand scheme of things.  Even when adjusted for inflation, the film is the third-biggest domestic earner in the series, surpassing the adjusted-$279 million gross of You Only Live Twice ($43 million in real 1967 dollars) and hanging out below only the $515 million-grossing Goldfinger ($51 million in 1964) and the $585 million-grossing Thunderball ($65 million in 1965). It's the biggest-grossing spy film of all time and the highest-grossing non-fantasy action film of all-time.  Even when playing the inflation card, it's the sixth biggest spy movie ever, behind the aforementioned 60's 007 films, Mission: Impossible II ($310 million adjusted gross/$215 million actual gross) Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me ($315m/$205m), and the first Mission: Impossible ($318m/$181m).  If you factor in pretty much every remotely recent non-fantastical/non superhero action franchise, it still ends up with more tickets sold than all but the likes of Beverly Hills Cop ($522m/$234m), Rambo: First Blood Part II ($329m/$150m),  Rush Hour 2 ($310m/$226m), and Beverly Hills Cop II ($305m/$153m).  

IMAX and midnight box office: Skyfall has $4.6 million so far. Can 007 top $100 million for the weekend?

While I am all in favor of major films doing advance IMAX-only releases, MGM and Sony's decision to open Skyfall a day early in IMAX makes the numbers a little tougher to analyze.  For the record, the 23rd official James Bond adventure earned $2.2 million on Thursday playing in 463 IMAX engagements.  The only real plausible comparison is Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol which opened five days early on 425 IMAX screens and earned $4.1 million on its first Friday of such play.  In addition, Skyfall earned another $2.4 million in wide-release midnight showings (a large chunk of its 3,500 screens), bringing its gross to $4.6 million before 'regular business hours'.  That extra day of IMAX-only play, along with the fact that Monday is a holiday for most schools and many businesses, makes the math a little more speculative, but no one said this is an exact science, so let's dive in!  

Classic Marketing: How the trailer for Brian DePalma's Mission: Impossible invented the modern movie tease, for better or worse.

If you were old enough (or young enough) to care back in February or March 1996, you probably thought this was the greatest trailer you had ever seen.  And in a certain sense, you were right.  For better or worse, this trailer for Brian DePalma's Mission: Impossible basically redefined the modern movie trailer.  While Batman (1989) was the first major trailer to have no narration or voice over of any kind, the M:I trailer played a different game.  It was arguably the first trailer to move so quickly that you could barely digest the images.  It had plenty of dialogue and plot teases, most of it supplied by an gloriously cryptic Henry Czerny, but the would-be exposition vague enough to not qualify as a spoiler.  On the other hand, it has explicit misdirection, falsely setting up Emmanuelle Béart as a damsel-in-distress while using a sex scene between her and Tom Cruise that wasn't even in the final cut of the film.  But its core contribution to modern film-trailer construction was the sheer speed and intensity of its action montage.  Obviously set to Lalo Schifrin's classic theme (well, maybe not so obviously...), the final rip-roaring 90 seconds arguably redefined how high-energy a trailer could be.

Dumb idea of the week: Pairing Tom Cruise with an unknown to boost box office? Fourth Mission: Impossible film to not be titled 'Mission: Impossible'?

Long story short, Paramount is doing all kinds of tinkering with the fourth Mission: Impossible picture, in a bid to cut down costs (yes, Randy, I know...), and/or 'reboot the series'. As Variety reported the other day, the two big change is that co-star Jeremy Renner will now be a co-lead with Tom Cruise, in a theoretical passing of the torch should Paramount or Tom Cruise decide to continue the series without Tom Cruise. Also of note is that the studio is considering calling the film something other than 'Mission: Impossible'. Brad Bird is (thankfully) still directing and the film is still set for December 2011.

Can Sex & the City 2 overcome the TV-sequels curse? Is it Star Trek: the Wrath of Khan or X-Files: I Want to Believe?

As most of you know, Sex & the City 2 opens worldwide on Thursday, May 27th. Expectations are running high, with the general consensus that it will perform in a similar fashion to the first picture ($57 million opening weekend, $152 million domestic total). But the odds are indeed stacked against it. There are two major issues at play. First, and more obviously, the $95 million picture (costing $30 million more than the first film) will have to overcome the infamous Tomb Raider trap. For those new to this site, the Tomb Raider trap (named for the enjoyable adventure yarn that is Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life) is the phenomenon in which a generally-disliked film becomes a smash hit based purely on marketing and hype. But the arguably superior sequel flops or under-performs because even though it is a better movie, audiences aren't willing to take the chance again (other instances of this phenomenon include Addams Family Values and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian). Unless you were a die-hard fan of the original show, you probably didn't care much for the original Sex and the City movie. So theoretically only the hardcore fans will check this one out this time, right? But the real danger is the fact that it is a sequel to a film that was itself based on a television series. It's a tiny genre, one that is made up of either out-of-the-park smash hits or out and out flops. If it ends up as an example of the latter, the Carrie Bradshaw sequel should be thrilled to gross 1/2 of what the original made.