While the focus of the latest issue of Empire Magazine has mainly been on Indiana Jones 5, it also includes an interesting nugget about arguably the biggest action movie of next year, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One.
Speaking with the magazine, director Christopher McQuarrie elaborated on that intriguing subtitle and what it could mean for Tom Cruise's act IMF agent Ethan Hunt. He teases,
“There are many things emerging from Ethan’s past. ‘Dead reckoning’ is a navigational term. It means you’re picking a course based solely on your last known position and that becomes quite the metaphor not only for Ethan, but several characters.”
Thanks to multiple crypic messages from McQ, it's been heavily expected that the two-parter - and rumored franchise conclusion - would delve deep into Ethan's mysterious past, but it remains to be seen exactly where Cruise and McQ plan to take our hero. Regardless, one thing we do know is that these next two films are going to be bigger than anything we've seen before.
“The first thing we knew was that if it’s gonna be a big two-part adventure, it’s got to be epic. It’s going to have to be the installment that swallows the rest of the franchise whole. There’s just not another way to do it.”
In addition to Cruise as the headliner, the highly anticipated McQ-directed action blockbuster will also see the return of Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell, Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, Academy Award-nominee Vanessa Kirby as the White Widow, Frederick Schmidt as Zola, and Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge.
Newcomers to the franchise include Hayley Atwell (Avengers: Endgame; Captain America: The First Avenger) as Grace, Shea Whigham (Perry Mason; Marvel's Agent Carter), Pom Klementieff (Avengers: Endgame; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Esai Morales (Titans; La Bamba), Rob Delaney (Deadpool 2; Hobbs & Shaw), Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride; Saw), Indira Varma (Game of Thrones; Carnival Row), Mark Gatiss (The Father; The Favourite), Charles Parnell (Top Gun: Maverick; Transformers: Age of Extinction), Greg Tarzan Davis (Top Gun: Maverick; Grey's Anatomy), Mariela Garriga (NCIS; NCIS: Los Angeles), Marcin Dorociński (The Queen's Gambit; Vikings: Valhalla), and Lampros Kalfuntzos (No Time to Die; Ted Lasso).
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One lights the fuse in theaters on July 14, 2023; with the expected franchise finale, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two, set to arrive the following year on June 28, 2024.