Your mission, should you choose to accept it, might involve fixing the ending of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible 5… which may self-destruct in 30 seconds.
When Paramount agreed to move the release date of the next Mission: Impossible movie from December to July, many of us assumed it meant that the production was ahead of schedule and the sequel had come together better than the studio could have hoped. Not so much… not yet, anyway. THR now is going on record to claim that the production has shut down "for a week or so" and that director Christopher McQuarrie could work with an unidentified writer to perfect what they deem as a good ending -- just not a great one. The source quoted by the trade says:
Chris, Tom [Cruise] and a third person wanted to take a minute to get from what they thought was a good place to a more perfect place.
And Paramount is giving them time to do that. Just not too much time. The film is now racing to meet a July 31 release date, meaning the ending has to be concocted, and a crew has to be assembled to shoot the damn thing. Not the best scenario when you are a few months out form release.
One has to wonder if Tom Cruise and the M:I franchise is becoming a victim of its own success. By all accounts, J.J. Abrams did a fine job stabilizing the series with the fun, enjoyable M:I III. But Brad Bird took things to a new level with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, a sequel that earned $694 million worldwide and heaps of critical praise. Cruise and company likely want to deliver a sequel that lives up to the new bar raised high by the previous installment. Maybe that’s what this new ending is all about?
Or maybe Cruise and McQuarrie want to leave themselves with an open-ended conclusion to Mission: Impossible 5 that leaves the door open for even more adventures with Ethan Hunt? We don’t know what the original ending involved. And we don’t know where Cruise, McQuarrie and this new writer plan to now go with the sequel. I do find it funny that McQuarrie tends to be the guy who Cruise brings in to punch up broken scripts. Who, then, does Cruise call when he needs to fix a McQuarrie screenplay?
From what we know, Mission: Impossible 5 will still be in theaters on July 31.
