Mission: Impossible 8 hasn't started filming yet, but that doesn't mean Tom Cruise isn't already hard at work getting ready to shoot his biggest - and what could well be his wildest - Mission yet.
He was snapped over the extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend in Cambridge, practicing an aerial stunt 2,000 feet in the air where he was seen climbing out of the cockpit of a yellow biplane and then hanging off the wings upside-down. There was another plane tailing them, presumably performing camera tests ahead of the film's expected production start date at the top of next year.
According to eyewitness reports, Cruise was harnessed to the wing, then dangled himself upside down as the plane flipped on its belly and left the 3x Academy Award-nominated actor sitting right-side-up. The pilot then proceeded to take the plane into a nosedive, and performed a spin, before Cruise finally made his way back into the cockpit.
As for why they're using a World War II-era biplane for the stunt, well, that's not entirely clear just yet, but we can probably safely rule out time travel... or can we?
While Cruise will certainly return for chapter eight, we don't know much about who may or may not be joining him, save for franchise newcomer Hayley Atwell (Avengers: Endgame; Captain America: The First Avenger), who will reprise her role as Grace from the upcoming Mission: Impossible 7, which wrapped principal photography back in September.
It's also increasingly probable that Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), Rebecca Ferguson (Ilsa Faust), Academy Award-nominee Vanessa Kirby (White Widow), and Henry Czerny (Eugene Kittridge) will also be back with some combination of Pom Klementieff (Avengers: Endgame; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Shea Whigham (Perry Mason; Marvel's Agent Carter), Esai Morales (Titans; La Bamba), Rob Delaney (Deadpool 2; Hobbs & Shaw), Charles Parnell (Top Gun: Maverick; Transformers: Age of Extinction), Indira Varma (Game of Thrones; Carnival Row), Mark Gatiss (The Father; The Favourite), and Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride; Saw).
Mission: Impossible 7 lights the fuse in theaters on September 30, 2022; followed by Mission: Impossible 8 on July 7, 2023.