A new project starring Tom Cruise has been teased by Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 director Christopher McQuarrie. Dead Reckoning will be the seventh Mission: Impossible film. Cruise will return yet again as action hero Ethan Hunt, starring alongside Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Vanessa Kirby, Rebecca Ferguson, and Hayley Atwell. The film’s stunts are already promised to be better than ever, with Atwell and other actors detailing their intense Mission: Impossible training processes during the film's production.
McQuarrie and Cruise have been frequent collaborators throughout their careers. Besides directing Mission: Impossible 7 and its in-production follow-up Mission: Impossible 8, McQuarrie also worked on the two previous installments, 2015's Rogue Nation and 2018's Fallout. His partnership with Cruise extend beyond the world of Mission: Impossible, too; McQuarrie served as a screenwriter for Edge of Tomorrow, The Mummy, and Top Gun: Maverick, and as a director for Jack Reacher.
It looks like McQuarrie and Cruise will continue their partnership outside of the Mission: Impossible universe. In a recent interview with Light the Fuse podcast (via The Wrap), McQuarrie reveals that he and Cruise are planning to work on a project that the two have “talked about for a really long time.” According to McQuarrie, this film will be a departure from Cruise’s usual work, but a little more inside of McQuarrie’s own “wheelhouse.” Check out the full statement from McQuarrie below:
“It’s kind of under wraps. It has neither a fuse nor a fuselage. Oh that’s not true. It does have some fuselages. It’s something we’ve talked about for a really long time. It’s way outside of what you’re used to seeing Tom do. It’s the kind of stuff I really love. It’s a little bit more in my wheelhouse. And yet it takes everything we’ve learned on this journey, which is making movies more and more about emotion and real emotional experiences. That’s what you’re feeling when you’re watching ‘Top Gun’ – it’s me and Tom squeezing your adrenals for every emotion. Now we’re applying that to something that is gnarlier.”
McQuarrie is setting a high bar for himself in regard to this next Cruise project. His final statement alone is a bold claim. If this mysterious film is to apply the “feeling when you’re watching Top Gun” to “something that is gnarlier,” this obscure project could be an absolute film sensation. Top Gun: Maverick was a smashing success at both the box office and with critics, so upping the game on that into a whole new project sounds like an insurmountably difficult task, but one that could be thrilling if pulled off.
Another compelling aspect of McQuarrie’s statement lies in the idea of this new project being more inside the writer-director’s wheelhouse. Fans are used to seeing Cruise perform. He’s an action actor notorious for his daredevil stunt performances who breaks out into the occasional drama (e.g. Rain Man, Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut). McQuarrie’s career, on the other hand, has been most clearly defined by his projects with Cruise. Thus, McQuarrie’s specific wheelhouse could represent some kind of untapped potential that the world has not seen yet. If the director’s claim regarding the departure from Cruise’s usual work holds any weight, this vague idea of a film could turn into something thrilling for audiences, even if it does not look anything like the collaboration viewers saw with the Mission: Impossible movies.
Source: Light The Fuse (via The Wrap)
