With Christmas nearly upon us, this may be one of the last major casting scoops we get this year and fortunately, it's a good one as ace director Chris McQuarrie has announced today that Shea Whigham (
Boardwalk Empire;
Agent Carter;
Joker) has joined the increasingly impressive cast of Tom Cruise's highly-anticipated
Mission: Impossible 7 &
Mission: Impossible 8.
Further details on his role remain under lock and key at the IMF for now, but McQuarrie does offer a slight hint on whether he'll be friend or foe to Ethan Hunt (Cruise) with the following caption, "
You won't see him coming...," which would seemingly indicate that he'll be playing one of the villains in the two-part action sequels.
Whigham joins a star-studded cast, headlined, of course, by 3x Academy Award-nominee Tom Cruise (
Top Gun: Maverick) and also joins returning star Rebecca Ferguson (
Mission: Impossible - Fallout), who is set to reprise her role as Ilsa Faust, and fellow Marvel alums Hayley Atwell (
Avengers: Endgame), who was
cast in an undisclosed lead role earlier this fall, and Pom Klementieff (
Avengers: Endgame), who was
cast in a femme fatale role last month.
No word yet on who will make up Ethan Hunt's team for his seventh and eighth adventures, but it's more probable than not that some combination of Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), Jeremy Renner (William Brandt), Angela Bassett (Erica Sloane), Vanessa Kirby (White Widow), Paula Patton (Jane Carter) and/or Maggie Q (Zhen Lei) will be back in some capacity.
Both sequels are expected to film back-to-back with
Mission: Imposssible 7 set to light the fuse in theaters
on July 23, 2021 while its sequel,
Mission: Impossible 8, will open the following summer on August 5, 2022.
On another note, it looks like Hayley Atwell's intensive combat training for the highly demanding role is well underway.
The best intentions often come back to haunt you. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team (Alec Baldwin, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) along with some familiar allies (Rebecca Ferguson, Michelle Monaghan) in a race against time after a mission gone wrong. Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett, and Vanessa Kirby also join the dynamic cast with filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie returning to the helm.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout features:
Director: Chris McQuarrie
Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt
Henry Cavill as August Walker
Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell
Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn
Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust
Sean Harris as Solomon Lane
Angela Bassett as Erica Sloane
Vanessa Kirby as Alanna Mitsopolis/White Widow
Michelle Monaghan as Julia Meade
Wes Bentley as Erik
Frederick Schmidt as Zola Mitsopolis
Alec Baldwin as Alan Hunley
Liang Yang as "John Lark"
Kristoffer Joner as Nils Delbruuk
Mission: Impossible - Fallout is now available on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & Digital HD!