The mission, should you chose to accept it, is to look a few years in to the future and pencil in the summers of 2021 and 2022 for the next two entries in the Mission Impossible series, both of which will be written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie and will see Tom Cruise reprise the role of Ethan Hunt. Both men made announcements about their involvement via twitter. Industry site Variety reports that the films will now be shot back-to-back, similar to the method used by other franchise movies such as The Avengers to help curtail costs and to possibly add some continuity between the two films. The dates have been picked so as not to interfere with production and publicity for Tom Cruise’s other much-discussed film, a sequel to the classic Top Gun (and which is currently slated for 2020).
Opinion had been divided on the creative direction of the Mission Impossible films, each getting larger and more explosively stunt-filled than the last, though straining plausibility more and more, even for an action franchise. At one point, it was even possible that the most recent Fallout could be the last, with the current team at least. However Fallout went on to become the franchise’s top-earner with mixed-to-decent reviews and (more importantly) making nearly $800 million worldwide and with those sort of numbers, it makes perfect sense to continue. Fallout had some delays along the way, with its release date slipping and some reshoots undertaken and the MI movies – wit their sheer scope and budget – often have longer shooting-schedules. At this point, it is believed the very first elements could be shot as early as the end of 2019.
Summer 2021 and Summer 2022 pic.twitter.com/V6SNvZx2La
— Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) January 15, 2019
