Following an extended conversation between United Kingdom culture secretary Oliver Dowden and 3x Academy Award-nominated megastar Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible - Fallout; Edge of Tomorrow) last weekend about restarting filming on his highly anticipated Mission: Impossible 7, the U.K. government has announced plans to issue travel exemptions to him and several other leading U.S. actors and crew in an effort to speed up the restart on major film and television productions.
The exemption will allow actors and crew members to skip the required 14-day travel quarantine that is required for any travelers from the United States, granted, however, that those who receive the exemption will have to live and work within a protected bubble environment for two weeks and will have to follow strict guidelines on managing the risk of COVID-19, as set by the British Film Commission.
The move will now allow Cruise, director Chris McQuarrie, and the entire Mission team to restart at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden on schedule in September, possibly even sooner depending on how the situation develops between now and then.
It's currently unknown how many other films may be immediately affected by the ruling. The biggest film outside of Mission that is filming in the U.K. is Universal's Jurassic World: Dominion, which already had its stars go through quarantine and is expected to resume filming tomorrow. Warner Bros.' The Matrix 4 has also reportedly resumed work in Germany, but The Batman, as far as we know, is still on an indefinite pause. These exemptions could help speed it back into production.
Mission: Impossible 7 & 8 are headlined by Cruise (Top Gun: Maverick) as IMF ace Ethan Hunt, as well as fellow returning stars Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible - Fallout) as Ilsa Faust, Simon Pegg (Mission: Impossible - Fallout) as Benji Dunn, Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible - Fallout) as Luther Stickell, and Vanessa Kirby (Mission: Impossible - Fallout) as the White Widow. Newcomers to the storied action franchise include Hayley Atwell (Avengers: Endgame), Pom Klementieff (Avengers: Endgame), Shea Whigham (Joker) and Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: Dark Phoenix), who is rumored to be playing the villain. Henry Czerny (Sharp Objects) has also been confirmed to reprise his role as Eugene Kittridge from the first film.
There is also likely still more information to come regarding who will make up Ethan Hunt's team for his seventh and eighth adventures, with fans holding out hope that some combination of Jeremy Renner (William Brandt), Angela Bassett (Erica Sloane), Paula Patton (Jane Carter) and/or Maggie Q (Zhen Lei) will also return.
Both sequels are expected to film back-to-back, with Mission: Impossible 7 set to light the fuse in theaters on November 19, 2021, while its sequel, Mission: Impossible 8, will open the following fall on November 4, 2022.