While the initial assumption was that it was just going to be called Mission: Impossible IV, a couple of months ago it was revealed that the next flick in the Tom Cruise franchise was getting a new name, partially because it’s believed they’re trying to set things up so the series can continue without Ethan Hunt following the fourth instalment.
Now Gulf News has revealed that at a press conference in Dubai, they’ve let the name of the movie slip, and it’ll be called Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol. That does sound rather more like a video game than a film, but hopefully the logic of the name will become apparent as we get closer to the December 2011 release.
In true ‘I’m Tom Cruise and here’s why everything was my idea’ fashion, the actor had this to say about the new name, “One of the things I always wanted for the franchise was for it not to have a number afterwards. I’ve never done sequels to films and I never thought of these films as sequels. Paramount has done a great job in coming up with a title, so it’s not going to be MI2, 3, 4: it’s going to be Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol. I always felt it should have a title.”
While the cast and crew were keen to extol the virtues of Dubai (the press conference seems to have been arranged by the government as a condition of filming there), with Brad Bird saying things like, ‘We love the fact that its a big, new city, that it hasnt been photographed very much Its almost like sets that you could never afford,’ what no one would be drawn on is the plot. So what is a Ghost Protocol? And does anyone actually care anymore?
One interesting thing revealed is that there will extensive shooting at the Burj Khalifa, which is brand new and currently the tallest man-made structure ever built (by nearly 200m), with Cruise saying he’s going to spend a lot of time hanging off the 160 floor, 828 metre building.