He's baaaack. Tom Cruise's fifth instalment in the spy-action franchise Mission: Impossible is on track to top the weekend box office in the United States with takings of more than $US48 million ($A61 million).
On the eve of its August 6 Australian release, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is expected to beat the debut of Mission Impossible III, the lowest grossing film in the franchise.
If international takings were also to continue strongly, Rogue Nation could approach the earnings of the fourth film, Ghost Protocol. It earned the biggest world wide box office receipts of the Mission: Impossible franchise but with a wider US domestic cinema release.
The solid start must come as a relief for Cruise, who has been relentlessly promoting the film at a time when his long-term association with the Church of Scientology has been disputed in exposes like Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation took $US4 million ($A5.4 million) in pre-show screenings in the US and is tracking to bring in more than $US18 million ($A24 million) a day on its opening weekend, easily out-doing its only major rival, Vacation, the movie sequel of National Lampoon's Vacation, starring Christine Applegate.
Cruise's big budget film cost Paramount and Skydance Productions $US150 million ($A205 million) to make and sees Cruise's character Ethan Hunt attempting to stop an international secret society known as the Syndicate.
Once again, Cruise performs many of his own stunts and in one of the big action set pieces clings to the side of a plane as it takes off.
The risky stunts harking back to James Bond and John Le Carre have generally impressed the critics including Fairfax reviewer Jake Wilson, who believes that all five Mission: Impossible films are worth seeing.
Of Rogue Nation, Wilson wrote: "Between the big action set pieces, the film feels pleasantly old-fashioned, with some theatrical flourishes in the dialogue."
