Filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie recently appeared on the Light the Fuse podcast for its 100th episode and, as previously reported, he discussed some minor story details about the upcoming seven and eighth films.
McQuarrie has helmed every film in the series since the fifth one ‘Rogue Nation,’ but he came onboard the series with the fourth film ‘Ghost Protocol’. That film, directed by Brad Bird, effectively reinvigorated the franchise after the woeful second and the half-decent third by returning the focus back to being a ‘team’ movie throughout and incorporating elaborate action set pieces.
McQuarrie performed an uncredited rewrite of the film, and has now gone into detail about what changes he brought to the movie. He says that they were ten weeks into filming when he came on and “blew up the entire movie” and one of the big changes was Simon Pegg’s Benji killing the bad guy’s henchman rather than having Jeremy Renner’s William Brandt do it:
“I went into the room and knew this was one idea too many. I pitched the whole ending [with Renner killing the bad guy], got them all excited about it…And I knew one other person in the room loved father/son stories. And I started pitching [Benji] killing this guy to save Renner as a sort of father/son story between [Benji] and Ethan…I totally pitched it as an evolution of the character, that Benji grows up by committing murder.”
The studio was sold on the idea and it made it into the film. McQuarrie also spoke about incorrect media reports regarding the upcoming seventh film. Those reports indicated the production had been shut down after having begun filming and Tom Cruise had “fled Venice” in fear of infection.
McQuarrie dismisses that saying they were two days away from shooting and while he and some of the crew were in Venice, Cruise wasn’t at the time when the shutdown came. As a result, as the media reports started coming out McQuarrie gave Cruise “no end of ribbing” by texting him pictures of headlines in papers.
It’s expected filming on the new films will begin again in coming months.
