Filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie appeared on the 100th episode of the Light the Fuse podcast recently and dropped a couple of new details about the two upcoming “Mission: Impossible” sequels currently in the works.
First up, he officially confirmed that Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, and Vanessa Kirby are all returning for the films alongside the already set Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham, Pom Klementieff and Nicholas Hoult.
In terms of story he confirmed Pegg’s Benji and other characters would have character arcs akin to Ethan’s in ‘Fallout’, while Atwell’s character will “test all of the members of the IMF” in the films – dubbing her a force of nature but not quite calling her a villain.
McQuarrie says they’re taking the opportunity that comes with the shut down to “make the movie better in prep than we’ve ever had a chance to do before.” He also says there’s an actor they intend to get for the film that even much of the other cast is unaware of: “An actor I was very excited about. I don’t know where that is, because we had talked days before [the shutdown] and it was an incredibly exciting casting coup.”
He also explained the two film split. McQuarrie thinks of the films in 20 minute segments and they originally planned a sprawling 160 minute movie and “every scene in it was necessary”. They removed about 40 minutes of it and then the story clicked: “The ending of the first movie snapped into place. We knew what the ending was and we knew what the beginning was. And now I had these two sequences, which means, I’ve got 40 minutes of Mission: Impossible 8 figured out.”
Asked about the Tom Cruise in space film, he says: “what is happening in 7 and 8 is so insane that we don’t need to go to space.” Finally, composer Lorne Balfe (“Mission: Impossible – Fallout”) is confirmed to be returning for both films as well.
“Mission: Impossible 7” is set to premiere on November 19th 2021 while “Mission: Impossible 8” arrives November 4th 2022.
