Is Tom Cruise bidding farewell to ‘Mission Impossible’ franchise? Director reacts

Rumors are making rounds that Hollywood star Tom Cruise is leaving the Mission Impossible franchise after the release of the eighth film, Dead Reckoning Part One and Two.

In a recent episode of Light the Fuse podcast, director Christopher McQuarrie addressed the rumors and said that a lot of what is reported by trade magazines is actually not true.

In the previous Variety report, it was suggested that the films, expected to be released in 2023 and 2024, will act as “a sendoff for Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character.”

McQuarrie, who has directed the franchise films since 2015’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, shared, “Let me tell you, I’ve been working with Tom Cruise for 15 years and I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been standing next to the man, witnessed an event and then read about it in the trades the next day and none of what they describe is actually true,” Variety reported.

“We were in Birmingham shooting a scene between Tom and Haley [Atwell]. The next day I read an article in the paper that said Tom and four other guests went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant,” he noted.

“I called Tom the next day and said, ‘There’s something weird about this article. It’s 100 per cent factually correct!’” McQuarrie added. “That’s the first time I’ve read an article in which everything happened exactly as written.”

The movie-maker went on, “I read that ‘Mission’ was going to be shot concurrently and then we decided not to do that.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 is expected to be released in theatres on July 14, 2023, before Dead Reckoning 2 launches on June 28, 2024.