Though some predicted that Paramount's Mission: Impossible III would gross over $70 million during its opening weekend, the studio said it would be happy with $60 million -- unfortunately it had to settle for $48 million.  M:I3 easily won the box office crown, but given the immense number of commercials and promotional appearances the opening still has to be seen as disappointing especially in light of some previous first weekend in May debuts such as X2's ($85 million), The Mummy Returns ($68 million) and even Van Helsing ($51 million).  Still Paramount did take in $70 million in overseas sales and M:I3 will have at least one more weekend with limited competition before The Da Vinci Code opens -- and even if it wasn't the kind of 'super' kickoff for the summer season that many had hoped, Hollywood's top 10 films managed to best the total box office of the corresponding week in the anemic 2005 (Kingdom of Heaven opened this week last year) for the seventh consecutive week.

Despite M:I3's director (J.J. Abram) putting additional emphasis on super spy Ethan Hunt's relationships, the audience for the non-stop action pic was predictably 56% male -- and perhaps mega-star Tom Cruise is getting a little long in the tooth -- 64% of the first weekend crowd was over 25.