Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part I (July 14, 2023)

Mission: Impossible 7 & 8 Bringing Back Kittridge, Original Film's IMF Boss

The next two “Mission: Impossible” films will feature a character not seen since the first film in the franchise. Director Christopher McQuarrie revealed on Saturday that Henry Czerny will return as Eugene Kittridge.

“There is no escaping the past…,” McQuarrie wrote on Twitter on Saturday.

Kittridge was the head of the IMF in the first film and spends the majority of the time hunting down Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, who is suspected of being a mole. He eventually works with Hunt to apprehend the real mole, Jim Phelps (Jon Voight).

Czerny joins a cast that included Cruise, Nicholas Hoult, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham and Pom Klementieff.

The still-untitled “Mission: Impossible” 7 will hit theaters July 23, 2021, with part 8 coming just over a year later, on Aug. 5, 2022.

McQuarrie will return to write and direct the next two films in the action series. He wrote and directed 2015’s “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” and 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” which, globally earned $682 million and nearly $800 million, respectively. The films are shooting back-to-back to capitalize on the success of “Fallout,” the highest-earning installment of the franchise that launched in 1996.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Saw him recently in Ready or Not. Cool that they're bringing him back.

But just noticed that Hayley Atwell joined....

UltimateMarvel wrote:Just another Tuesday for Tom.

The real impossible mission? Landing a compromise between Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures.

In an exposé in The Hollywood Reporter, multiple industry insiders alleged that “Mission: Impossible 7” is now at the center of a distribution battle between lead star and producer Cruise and production company Paramount Pictures.

After multiple COVID-related production delays on “M:I 7,” the studio is setting a 45-day theatrical window for the latest installment in its tentpole franchise before bringing it to Paramount+. Per sources, Cruise is set on a more traditional (but certainly outmoded in 2022) three-month window.

Cruise allegedly has hired a lawyer to come to an agreement with Paramount, but they’re waiting until “M:I 7” is finished to resume negotiations.

“For [Cruise], 45 days is like going day-and-date,” a Paramount source told THR. “He also felt that setting a date when the movie could be seen on the service would discourage people from going to the theater.”

The release date for Christopher McQuarrie’s “M:I 7” has been pushed back four times, with its current premiere set for July 14, 2023. Per THR sources, Cruise is now elongating the production process as a negotiation tactic while simultaneously also working on the eighth (and presumably last) film.

The “Mission Impossible” franchise has proven to be a goldmine for Paramount, with 2018’s “Mission: Impossible: Fallout” the highest-grossing movie of the series, accumulating $791.6 million worldwide. The “Mission Impossible” franchise as a whole has grossed over $3.5 billion for Paramount.

“You would make [‘Mission: Impossible’] 7 and 8 even if you had a full slate,” a studio veteran told THR. “They weren’t crazy expensive by the standards of Marvel, of Bond.”

However, “M:I 7” topped a staggering $290 million budget with tax incentives. Sources noted that Cruise has allegedly “persuaded” Paramount Pictures’ new president and CEO Brian Robbins to give “Mission: Impossible” more money to finish the seventh film and make the eighth; production on “M:I 8” is reportedly already underway.

Allegedly, former Paramount CEO Jim Gianopulos was ousted in part due to not convincing Cruise to shorten the “M:I 7” theatrical release window ahead of a Paramount+ release.

“Jim was bridging between what [Paramount’s] Shari [Redstone] and [president and CEO] Bob [Bakish] wanted and what Jim felt was the right thing to do,” which was to protect the relationship with Cruise, one source said. “Part of the reason [Jim] is gone is that Shari and Bob thought they could wave a magic wand,” and persuade the star to accept the shortened window, as THR reported. “Tom is so committed to theatrical.”

IndieWire has reached out to Paramount for comment.

Similarly, sources indicate that Cruise will not see eye to eye with new Paramount CEO Gibbons.

“Tom says what he wants and the studio says what it wants,” an insider said. “And then Tom gets what he asked for.”

And that includes a large budget for “M:I 8,” plus allegedly more money to fund the finishing touches for “M:I 7.”

“M:I 8” is supposed to be released June 28, 2024.

joey con carne wrote:I agree with Tom Cruise. I wanted to go see Batman but it's going to hit HBO max in like three weeks. My schedule will only allow me to see the film on weekends and my peeps and I have conflicting schedules.

I'll probably just wait for HBO Max at this point. I guess I can go see it alone. I don't care about that. But the timing for me sucks and I'd rather see it with some peeps.

joey con carne wrote:I enjoyed going to movies later because that meant mostly empty theaters which was great before reserved seating took over. I still like going later because it just makes for a better viewing experience to me when there's less people around me. I'm weird like that.

Tom Cruise can flex all he wants. I love all his work. I couldn't care less if he was a Scientologist or whatever. His personal life doesn't affect how fun his movies are and I gladly pay to see his stuff in theaters. Rogue Nation and Fallout were bananas and I loved every minute of them.

Tyger wrote:Disagree, the last 2 were forgettable and it’s gotten far too repetitive

UltimateMarvel wrote:

Tyger wrote:Disagree, the last 2 were forgettable and it’s gotten far too repetitive

Nonsense! There is actually a story arc that continues in the last 2 which makes it better.

Tyger wrote:Every movie they’re disavowed and on their own with a bare minimum of gadgets and Tom has to climb something. He can keep climbing shit, I’m not trying to take that away from anybody, but you can’t tell me that ONE GODDAMN TIME the IMF team just does their fucking job like a normal fucking mission????

Tyger wrote:Every movie they’re disavowed and on their own with a bare minimum of gadgets and Tom has to climb something. He can keep climbing shit, I’m not trying to take that away from anybody, but you can’t tell me that ONE GODDAMN TIME the IMF team just does their fucking job like a normal fucking mission????

WyldeMan wrote:

Tyger wrote:Every movie they’re disavowed and on their own with a bare minimum of gadgets and Tom has to climb something. He can keep climbing shit, I’m not trying to take that away from anybody, but you can’t tell me that ONE GODDAMN TIME the IMF team just does their fucking job like a normal fucking mission????

That's why I can't tell them apart other than by which female co-stars are in it. The plots are the same, the dames are usually different.

If only there was a tv show they could take inspiration from.

Tyger wrote:The show got boring too, I don’t think I even finished the first season

joey con carne wrote:Oh, UM.... Mission: Impossible was originally a television show in the 1960's and 1980's.

UltimateMarvel wrote:

joey con carne wrote:Oh, UM.... Mission: Impossible was originally a television show in the 1960's and 1980's.

I'm sure someone mentioned this before but I completely forgot.  

WyldeMan wrote:We're all very aware that you have dedicated your life to being as naive to twentieth century pop culture history as humanely possible. We're also aware this is exactly how you got your job at the studio. You really don't need to try and justify why you didn't know Mission Impossible was a tv show. TV began for you in 2000 with Fox's Get Real, it's why you're such a big Jesse Eisenberg fan and why you keep putting him in all those movies. We get it man, it's cool.

Tyger wrote:Oh god, they’re doing that shit with these now??

UltimateMarvel wrote:I predict a cliff hanger ending.....

UltimateMarvel wrote:There goes Tom just jump off a cliff with a motorcycle. lol Looks great and I forgot that Hayley was in this too. Looking forward to this one.

Rusty wrote:First thing I thought when he pulled up at the edge of the cliff earlier in the trailer was "dude should launch off and base jump that shit". Nek minute

We got two separate Tom sprints in that trailer too.

So much Tom Cruise running. You know it's gonna be good now.

Tom Cruise is facing his most impossible mission yet: stealing back all the IMAX screens from Christopher Nolan. As reported by Puck, Nolan’s Oppenheimer has locked down all the IMAX screens in North America—and other territories—for three whole weeks starting July 21. This means the Universal Studios movie about the man who developed the atomic bomb just dropped one on Tom Cruise‘s nearly $300 million Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part One.

Despite booking most of the IMAX screens for the week of Mission: Impossible 7‘s July 12 opening Tom Cruise, much like Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, isn’t happy unless he can have everything he desires. To that end, the 60-year-old megastar has been reportedly going around Hollywood loudly voicing his displeasure over Oppenheimer‘s IMAX dominance.

According to one source, Tom Cruise is personally calling around to exhibition and studio execs to plead his case. Since IMAX makes up roughly a third of all P.L.F.s—Premium Large Format auditoriums—in the US, Cruise has changed gears and is currently working to secure as many of the non-IMAX P.L.F.s as he can. According to one anonymous exec, the diminutive Scientologist has even started asking rival movies to give up their P.L.F.s or even postpone their release dates “for the good of the entire theatrical business.”

Given Christopher Nolan‘s history with the IMAX brand, it only makes sense that the filmmaker would try and make sure Oppenheimer screens on as many IMAX screens as possible. Nolan has always praised the format and even filmed the entirety of Oppenheimer with IMAXs large format cameras. If the director’s loyalty to the format wasn’t enough, Universal staked out Nolan’s usual late July slot back in 2021, way before Mission: Impossible announced its planned release date the following year. You would think someone as synonymous with the movie business as Tom Cruise would be willing to follow the “first come, first served rule,” but you would be wrong.''

Oddly, most of the hot air currently inflating Tom Cruise’s ego came from the lungs of Steven Spielberg. The Indiana Jones co-creator told Cruise publically, “You saved Hollywood’s a** and you might have saved theatrical distribution,” before reiterating, “Seriously, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ might have saved the entire theatrical industry.” Whether Spielberg meant his words as hyperbole or he really believes the actor singlehandedly saved Hollywood is irrelevant. Tom Cruise seems to believe Spielberg’s words.

There’s no other way to explain why Cruise would allegedly use the fact that he “saved” theaters as a way to persuade distributors to relinquish their theaters to him. Tom Cruise is reportedly running around showing Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part One to any exhibitor who will watch it, believing that once they see his latest masterpiece, the only question on any of their lips will be “Christopher who?” So far, it doesn’t appear to be working.

Maybe Tom should ask Steven Spielberg to accompany him to these impromptu screenings as the actor’s hype man. It couldn’t hurt. Cruise’s rep, Amanda Lundberg, has so far declined to comment.

Source: GFR

Tyger wrote:I’d rather watch a full movie than half a movie

WyldeMan wrote:

Tyger wrote:I’d rather watch a full movie than half a movie

Yup, just look at Dune. That felt like I watched 1/4 of a movie...

Tyger wrote:

WyldeMan wrote:

Tyger wrote:I’d rather watch a full movie than half a movie

Yup, just look at Dune. That felt like I watched 1/4 of a movie...

Dune was great though.