The Next Mission: Impossible Movie Has Been Delayed Nearly A Full Year, Will Now Open In 2025
Are you sitting down? I have some bad news for you. Remember when you thought we were getting the next "Mission: Impossible" movie next March? Well, about that ... Turns out we're all going to have to wait a little bit longer to see the follow-up to this year's "Dead Reckoning Part 1," as Paramount has shuffled around their slate and now bumped the next "Mission: Impossible" all the way to May 23, 2025.
It's a bummer, I know. Tom Cruise and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie shot the previous film and the upcoming one back to back, navigating a long break in filming during the pandemic and being one of the first major franchise players to return to work using the industry's strict Covid safety protocols, but now they have a new challenge to weather: the continuing SAG-AFTRA strike.
The AMPTP has come to agreements with both the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild, but they're still stuck on the deal for the actors, which means no big studio movies can film and even the projects that were completed pre-strike are in a bind because the big A-list names in their cast won't be able to help promote the film.
Thankfully, it looks like negotiations are back on with the AMPTP and SAG this week, but there's no telling how long the studios will drag this out. The Deadline story that revealed the push to 2025 didn't directly say the strike was the sole reason, but it did suggest that it played a part. If they needed to do any last-minute reshoots, for instance, they wouldn't be able to with the strike still pending.
The title of the sequel has been rethought
Another interesting angle on this is that Paramount is apparently dropping "Dead Reckoning Part 2" from the title, which is probably smart. Unless you're "Harry Potter" it's really tough to get people invested in what they think is half the story, which may account for some of the low box office totals for "Dead Reckoning Part 1."
If I were a betting man, I'd say in future home video and streaming releases we'll just be seeing the last one called "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning" minus the "Part 1."
It's also worth noting that this shift to 2025 was such a recent decision that as early as this morning Paramount's publicity team was still sending out info on their 2024 slate that included the next "Mission: Impossible." Someone somewhere made the call to push very recently.
While it sucks that we have to wait another year to see how Ethan Hunt and his team deal with this crazy AI bad guy, I'd always rather the creative team be given whatever room they need to make something spectacular instead of rushing to meet a release date. This push gives McQuarrie time to fine-tune his film, wait for the AMPTP to come to their senses and make a deal with the actors, and throw in some additional reshoots if they need to spruce it up here or there.