After the massive success of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the sixth installment in Tom Cruise’s death-defying action series, Paramount Pictures has reportedly signed on director Christopher McQuarrie to write and direct the seventh and eighth installments of the franchise. The 2018 released film grossed over $790 million worldwide on a reported budget of $178 million, recording the best haul in the franchise to date.
After Mission: Impossible – Fallout, many big Hollywood film studios, including Warner Bros, approached McQuarrie for film projects. But, he declined all the offers and went for a break instead, reported The Hollywood Reporter.
According to Variety, Paramount wants McQuarrie to write the scripts for the next two MI franchise films now while Cruise is busy filming Top Gun: Maverick. The studio then plans to shoot the next two Mission: Impossible franchise films back-to-back, same like the final two Avengers sequels, to take advantage of the popularity of the series.
Mission: Impossible 7 will release in summer 2021, while its sequel Mission: Impossible 8 will follow in 2022. The release dates have been set to avoid conflict with Paramount and Cruise’s upcoming Top Gun: Maverick, which is set to hit theaters on June 26, 2020.
Soon after the news came out, Tom Cruise took to Twitter to tease the upcoming Mission: Impossible films’ Summer 2021 and Summer 2022 release windows. McQuarrie also confirmed the news on Twitter with a simple two-worded tweet.
You can check out the posts below.
There are no details on the stories that these next two films will focus on. With no date currently set for production to commence, sources expect McQuarrie to start shooting the next Mission: Impossible film sometime in 2019, whenever Cruise wraps filming on Top Gun: Maverick. As Paramount plans to shoot the next two Mission: Impossible films back-to-back, it is possible that this announcement could be a sign of the franchise’s end.
Summer 2021 and Summer 2022 pic.twitter.com/V6SNvZx2La
— Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) January 15, 2019
Missions: Accepted#MissionImpossible
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) January 14, 2019
