While it’s been known for a while that Tom Cruise and JJ Abrams have been working on another installment in the Mission:Impossible franchise, up until recently it’s just been early plans and while Cruise was committed to produce, he hadn’t made a deal to star. However now he’s inked the deal to return as Ethan Hunt and so Paramount has officially announced the film.
It’s fairly significant as Cruise and Paramount had a huge falling out in 2006, which saw the star getting ditched by the studio after 14 years because they thought he cost too much, but it seems they’ve now patched up their difference.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is the speed with which they’re hoping to get the new movie made, as the plan is to release M:I IV on Memorial Day weekend (May 27th), 2011. It’s a bold plan, as while the story for the film was concocted by Abrams and Cruise, screewriters Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec are nowhere near finishing the script and there’s no director attached to the movie yet either.
We can understand why Tom might want to return to Mission: Impossible territory, as his star has been slipping in recent years and the franchise seems to be the only place where he’s guaranteed a hit. Rumours that the new film would only feature Tom’s Ethan Hunt in a small role, passing the baton to a new spy, aren’t true, as it’ll be all Tom all the time, and the suggestion it’s a ‘reboot’ seems more that it’ll give the series a fresh feel, rather than they’re going back to the drawing board and starting again.
If you wanna see the full press release announcing the film, you can find it on Tom Cruise’s site.