The Mission: Impossible franchise has come a long way. It's crazy to think that the first movie in the series came out 24 years ago, but Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt persists to kick all kinds of ass all around the globe, and each chapter has kept the action growing bigger and bigger. At the same time, however, the films recognize the scale of that history, and that's true not only in the stories being told, but also the technical aspects.
Case in point, director Christopher McQuarrie, who is currently hard at work shooting the next two movies in the Mission: Impossible series, recently shared this cool bit of trivia that links the back-to-back production to the original feature directed by Brian De Palma in the mid-1990s:
Illustrating a fun and textbook example of coincidence, Christopher McQuarrie has revealed on Instagram that the Mission: Impossible 7/8 production has been making use of one of the lenses that was used to shoot a notable scene in 1996's Mission: Impossible, specifically the meeting between Ethan Hunt and Vanessa Redgrave's Max.
For those who don't remember the scene, it's a particularly sharp and well shot bit of the film, and available for your viewing pleasure with a click of a button below!
What makes this coincidence even more fun is the fact that it was just in the last Mission: Impossible movie – Mission: Impossible - Fallout – that the story reached back and invoked Max's name. It reveals that Vanessa Kirby's Alanna Mitsopolis a.k.a. The White Widow was the daughter of the arms dealer who was responsible for the death of a number of Impossible Mission Force agents, so this additional technical addition is a nice continuation.
And the fun doesn't end there. Not only is Mission: Impossible 7 linking back to the first movie by using some of the exact same equipment, but it's also been confirmed that Henry Czerny will be back as Eugene Kittridge – the CIA agent who we haven't seen since the first blockbuster. What will his role be? We have no idea, but we are excited regardless.
After being shut down earlier this year due to the on-going pandemic, production on both Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 is now back up and running. While the next film was originally going to hit theaters on July 23, 2021, it will now scheduled to hit the big screen on November 19, 2021, and its follow-up will come out a little less than a year later on November 4, 2022.
In addition to the aforementioned Tom Cruise, Vanessa Kirby and Henry Czerny, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Rebecca Ferguson will all also be back in action in the forthcoming sequel, and newcomers to the franchise include Esai Morales (who is reportedly playing the main antagonist), Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, and Shea Whigham.
Stay tuned for more updates about the development of Mission: Impossible 7 and Mission: Impossible 8, to see what other major films are coming out in the next year, be sure to check out our 2021 Release Calendar.
