“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” will be the title of Tom Cruise’s seventh global adventure as Ethan Hunt.
During its Thursday presentation at CinemaCon, the annual trade show for theatre owners, Paramount Pictures revealed the official title of the tentpole. Cruise, who is usually a regular at the Las Vegas convention, was not present. To be fair, he did attend last year’s CinemaCon to promote the death-defying stunts in “Mission: Impossible 7” before the film’s release date was pushed back a year due to COVID-19. He was most excited about driving a motorcycle off a cliff in Norway at the time, which he described as “far and away the most dangerous thing I’ve attempted.”
The high-stakes trailer, which hasn’t been made public yet, gave audiences a sneak preview of that nerve-wracking moment — and more. Ethan Hunt’s stunts have become so outrageous that everyone in the room laughs when he nose dives off a cliff on his motorcycle and then free-falls into the abyss. The teaser will be shown in front of “Top Gun: Maverick,” which opens in theatres on May 27.
Because Cruise was hanging from an airplane, he sent a pre-recorded video that was nearly unintelligible. “Please take pleasure in it,” he said to the audience. “Also, hey! Let’s make the most of this summer.”
The studio devoted nearly the entire three-hour presentation to screening Cruise’s other high-profile blockbuster, “Top Gun: Maverick,” a sequel to the 1986 action adventure. The film, which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month, will be shown for the first time to a large audience on Thursday.
After directing the franchise’s fifth and sixth instalments, “Rogue Nation” in 2015 and “Fallout” in 2018, Christopher McQuarrie returns to direct “Mission: Impossible – 7.” The latter became the longest-running series’ highest-grossing entry, grossing nearly $800 million worldwide.
Since 1996, the “Mission: Impossible” films have grossed over $3.5 billion at the global box office. “Mission: Impossible III,” released in 2006, was the lowest-grossing instalment in the popular spy series, grossing only $398 million worldwide. However, Cruise successfully revived the franchise with “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” which grossed $695 million worldwide and was the highest-grossing film until “Fallout” was released.
Ving Rhames, Henry Czerny, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, and Frederick Schmidt will all return to reprise their roles as IMF agents known for occasionally hanging off planes and skyscrapers. Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Esai Morales, Rob Delaney, Charles Parnell, Indira Varma, Mark Gatiss, and Cary Elwes are among the newcomers to the franchise.
The release of “MI7,” which has been postponed several times due to the pandemic, is set for July 14, 2023. The sequel, dubbed “Dead Reckoning Part Two,” is set to be released on June 28, 2024.