Following this morning’s second trailer release for “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” the film’s director Christopher McQuarrie has spoken about what more we can expect from the highly anticipated sequel.
Two trailers in, and specifics of the film’s plot remain very much under wraps. That is by design, says McQuarrie, who spoke with Empire Magazine and broke down key moments of the trailer.
McQuarrie says: “I’m very sensitive to when people tell me how disappointed they are when trailers tend to give away the entire movie.” As a result, both the trailers so far have played it coy on the storytelling basics.
We do know Kitteridge (Henry Czerny) returns from the first ‘Mission’, but his role doesn’t seem to be a direct foil for Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt – rather his loyalties seem unclear.
What is known is that 60-year-old Esai Morales is taking on the role of the villain, a character originally set to be played by the much younger Nicholas Hoult. McQuarrie says that the change in casting and having an actor of comparable age to Cruise led to a reconception of the character:
“Casting Esai allowed us to explore things with those characters and the notion of Ethan’s past. Ethan has a past that predates the IMF, and that allowed us to explore that with a character that knew Ethan before Ethan was Ethan. That’s part of who Gabriel is. Every detail of the story is very carefully considered. People who want to do their homework can derive from that name, whatever they please.”
Gabriel, of course, is the archangel who in various Abrahamic religions, serves as God’s messenger. Indeed, the character here hints that he merely represents a much larger and more sinister power.
“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” hits cinemas on July 12th 2023, and will precede “Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two” which arrives in cinemas on June 28th 2024.
