Mission Impossible blows up the box office

Tom Cruise's latest blockbuster is the highest-earning Mission Impossible film to date.

Actor Tom Cruise, seen here at a fan event in New York on June 6, 2017, says shattering an ankle while making "Mission Impossible — Fallout" was tough but "I didn't want to stop filming"

Mission Impossible: Fallout, the sixth and latest stunt-filled entry of the Tom Cruise action franchise, has topped the weekend box office in North America, outperforming the five earlier films in this series.

The Paramount/Skydance production took in an estimated $61.5 million (around R810 million) for the three-day weekend, according to industry tracker Exhibitor Relations, more than quadrupling the $15 million earned by second-place Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

Mission Impossible: Fallout has 56-year-old Cruise, who famously still does his own cliff-hanging, car-rolling stunts, ordered to track down some missing plutonium and find a terror-minded villain.

Critics seem to like the film despite its weaknesses. Though “often ridiculous,” the Washington Post wrote, the film “works amazingly well.”

Universal’s Mamma Mia clung to the second spot for a second straight weekend.

With a star-studded cast including Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan, the film uses plentiful flashbacks to fill in the story of Streep’s carefree character on the only Greek island with a built-in Abba soundtrack.

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