During his recent appearance on the Light The Fuse podcast, Chris McQuarrie alluded to some major casting news coming our way, and the ace director has now announced that Esai Morales (Titans; Ozark; Curb Your Enthusiasm) has joined the star-studded cast of Mission: Impossible 7 & 8.
Further details on his charater are currently under lock-and-key, but McQuarrie's brief tease does seem to indicate that Morales may be playing a villain. It reads, "We all face the same fate...," which seems like an ominous warning for one Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise).
Production is still on indefinite hold due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but it seems as though filming may be able to resume within the next month or so, barring any unforeseen developments.
While it's unclear whether we'll get any more casting news before filming picks up again, McQuarrie did recently hint that "Any character, dead or alive, is fair game to return," seemingly opening the door for the likes of Henry Cavill (Mission: Impossible - Fallout), Alec Baldwin (Mission: Impossible - Fallout), and countless others; so it's possible a lot of casting news will be kept under wraps until the films actually hit theaters.
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.