As Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise has accepted every ‘impossible’ mission and survived every high-octane incident, but there must be some wondering if he and his team are going to be defeated my microbes. This weekend brought the news that Paramount pictures are further delaying the release of the next two Mission Impossible movies which are being filmed back-to-back and we won’t see the first of those (Mission Impossible 7) until the middle of next year.
“After thoughtful consideration, Paramount Pictures and Skydance have decided to postpone the release dates for Mission: Impossible 7 & 8 in response to delays due to the ongoing pandemic. The new release dates will be July 14, 2023, and June 28, 2024, respectively,” the companies said in a statement. “We look forward to providing moviegoers with an unparalleled theatrical experience.”
That film was originally due to start filming on February 20, 2020, but had delays as it soon became clear that the already-hectic production schedule would not be able to match the evolving outbreaks of COVID. COVID continued to be a major concern and one news story released audio of Cruise berating some of the crew who he claimed were not following protocols and the risk that caused. Generally, it seemed that most industry names and the general public sided with him on the importance of taking full precautions – especially when there were so many jobs on the line if the production was to have to shutter permanently. There were also problems such as a large fire breaking out on a motorcycle stunt rig in Oxfordshire that caused further delays.
Mission Impossible 7 had originally been slated to debut on 23rd July, 2021 but got pushed further and further back… to 19th November 2021 then 27th May 2022, then 30th September 2022 – before settling on the current 2023 timings. Cruise’s co-stars include Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Henry Czerny, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby and Angela Bassett – with Cruise and Atwell spotted at the end of last year filming in glamorous Yorkshire for one of the film’s sequences.
Currently, Tom Cruise’s other big tentpole movie Top Gun: Maverick – originally marked for a 12th July 2019 landing and delayed many times as well, is still slated to arrive on 2th May, though that date (as all others) may still remain at the mercy of COVID regulations and the current state of the Omicron variant.
