After taking a quick Christmas holiday in the United States, 3x Academy Award-nominee Tom Cruise (Top Gun: Maverick, Mission: Impossible - Fallout) has returned to the United Kingdom for what's expected to be the final leg of filming for his hotly-awaited action sequel, Mission: Impossible 7.
However, after expressing frustration at crew members for not following safety protocols earlier this month, the entire production has now shifted from Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden over to Longcross Film Studios, which is a former U.K. Ministry of Defence site that was used to test army tanks and currently falls within Tier 4, the highest level of COVID-19 restrictions.
Mission: Impossible 7 is expected to wrap principal photography at Longcross, presumably sometime in January/February, but it's currently unclear whether Cruise and company will stick to their original plan of heading straight into production on Mission: Impossible 8 or if they'll take a short hiatus to reset and recharge as COVID cases spike devastatingly in the United Kingdom and across the globe.
The King's Man, Artemis Fowl, The Gentlemen, and Death on the Nile all filmed at Longcross last year while past productions to film at the military base-turned-movie studio include, but are not limited to, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: The Dark World, and Skyfall.
In addition to Cruise, the highly anticipated Chris McQuarrie-directed action blockbuster also stars Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation), Simon Pegg (Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation), Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation), Hayley Atwell (Avengers: Endgame; Captain America: The First Avenger), Pom Klementieff (Avengers: Endgame; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Vanessa Kirby (Mission: Impossible - Fallout; Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw), Shea Whigham (Perry Mason; Marvel's Agent Carter), Henry Czerny (Mission: Impossible; Supergirl), Esai Morales (Titans; La Bamba), and Angela Bassett (Soul; Mission: Impossible - Fallout).
Mission: Impossible 7 lights the fuse in theaters on November 19, 2021; followed by Mission: Impossible 8 on November 4, 2022.