Tom Cruise has been performing impossible missions for many years now, and even though the actor shows no signs of slowing down at 59 years of age, all good things must come to an end. Sure enough, it sounds like the next two Mission: Impossible movies will mark the iconic action star's final time in the role of Ethan Hunt.
Variety has published a piece on the havoc COVID-19 has played with Mission: Impossible 7's production, and in it the trade mentions that "the plan is for the seventh and eighth films to serve as a sendoff for Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character," and a “culmination of the entire series."
The franchise could continue without Hunt, of course, but it does sound like Paramount Pictures and Skydance might well be looking at MI8 as the final installment in the mega-budget franchise.
It's also come to light that the next movie will end "with a cliff-hanger," and Cruise "wants to make certain that the transition between installments is seamless." This is one of the main reasons both films were recently pushed back, with Mission: Impossible 7 moving from Sept. 30, 2022 to July 14, 2023, Mission: Impossible 8 set to open on June 28, 2024 instead of July 7, 2023.
Cruise is said to want to have finished shooting the eighth film before the seventh is released, so production on MI8 is scheduled to get underway in South Africa very soon.
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