Will MI3 be it?

Mission: Impossible III opened the past weekend to a "disappointing" $47.7 million, well below expectations and forecasts.

I'm very pleased for two reasons.

First, this way Tom 'Asshole' Cruise won't be able to go around saying that his crazy statements and actions don't influence his movies' performance. They do and his star clearly lost some of its sparkles in the past year or so.

Second, maybe Hollywood will stop and think twice (I know, I know, I'm dreaming here) before milking a franchise by releasing sequel after sequel up until the one that finally ruins the series' name. They do it all the time, just look at Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Star Wars 1-2-3 (as in the prequels vs the trilogy), Basic Instinct 2, Alien: Resurrection (the 4^th chapter, although some also hated the 3^rd), or Superman III. So far the only one Hollywood was able to resurrect is Batman, with it's recent fifth installment, Batman Begins, but it took 8 years, and for a long time it looked like it would never happen.

I personally really liked the first Mission: Impossible. It was a good story, well put together and, above all, did not feel like a vehicle for Mr. Cruise alone, given the all-star cast involved. The second one was overblown and stupid and because of that I'm not even going to bother with the one currently playing in theaters across the world (the movie actually made $70.3 million overseas, a rare instance of a blockbuster making more money abroad than domestically), which by the look of it (and it's $150 million price tag) looks just as silly if not more.

I'm sure Cruise will pull all the strings he can to make a fourth installment if he feels like ending it here would tarnish his reputation (or if the movie actually ends up making enough movie to warrant another episode), but I hope Hollywood will learn a lesson here: that sometimes, it's better to come up with a fresh idea than soil a movie's reputation with the umpteenth sequel.

But I know I'm kidding myself here.