The Mission: Impossible film franchise is one that gets stronger as it goes along. Following the impressive critical and commercial performance of Brad Bird's Ghost Protocol in 2011, Christopher McQuarrie delivered another rollicking adventure in the form of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation last summer. The fifth installment in the long-running series scored an impressive $682.3 million at the global box office thanks to a slew of positive reviews that praised it for its thrilling set pieces and fun performances. Paramount, of course, remains bullish on the property and has Mission: Impossible 6 coming through the pipeline with McQuarrie on-board to direct again.
The project hit a bit of a snag recently when there was a dispute involving Tom Cruise's salary for his next outing as Ethan Hunt. Fortunately, the issue was resolved fairly quickly, and Paramount eyed a spring 2017 date for the start of filming. Now, they've taken things a step further and secured a release date for the anticipated sequel.
Per Deadline, the currently untitled Mission: Impossible 6 will enter theaters on July 27, 2018, a similar window to the successful Rogue Nation. As it currently stands, the IMF's latest adventure will open against director James Wan's DC Extended Universe solo character film Aquaman, but odds are one of these tentpoles will move between now and then.
At this juncture, very little is known about the film. In the past, McQuarrie has discussed his intentions to craft an action sequence that will "raise the bar" when compared to previous entries. Viewers very much enjoyed Cruise's daring plane stunt that kicked off Rogue Nation, so it's evident that expectations will be quite high. However, this creative team should be up for the challenge and hopefully take the franchise to the next level. As for the cast, it's been reported that Rogue Nation standout Rebecca Ferguson will reprise her role as Ilsa Faust, but the rest of Hunt's team is unknown for now. Jeremy Renner has played the character Brandt in the last two movies, but he will be busy filming Avengers: Infinity War in 2017, so it remains to be seen how the schedules will line up. With production on track to start in the near future, casting announcements should come soon.
Both the James Bond and Jason Bourne series (read: other popular spy/action titles) arguably hit creative snags with their most recent respective installments, Spectre and Jason Bourne. Whenever a franchise lasts this long, fatigue is a reasonable concern to have. However, Mission: Impossible has seemingly aged like fine wine and is at the top of its game 20 years later. Ideally, McQuarrie and company will be able to keep the hot streak going, since the audience for M:I is still quite large. In a Hollywood landscape populated by superheroes, wizards, and Jedi Knights, it's tough for a throwback action hero to stand out, but if anyone can do it, it's Tom Cruise.
Source: Deadline