The summer of two-part movies continues. As the summer movie season began we were given “Fast X,” a film that ended with a big cliffhanger. Then came “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” Guess what that ended with? Yep, a cliffhanger. Now we come to “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.” This is going to be a spoiler-free post, my friends. But I think you can guess where this is going, especially since the title of the dang movie has a “Part One” right there, teasing you, taunting you with what’s to come next.
It was always a plan for this to be a part one of two. Why? Because these movies are meant to be big, big, big. At one point there were even rumors that they’d be the final entries in the franchise, although that seems like it’s no longer the case. Recently, director Christopher McQuarrie told Fandango (via Coming Soon) that there were already plans for ideas for “Mission: Impossible 9.” What did you expect? Tom Cruise to stop risking his life for our entertainment? Yeah right.
Why two parts?
But why is the latest “Mission: Impossible” adventure being split into two films? According to McQuarrie, that was always the plan. Speaking with Collider, the filmmaker said: “‘Fallout’ really grew because of all the character and emotion we were putting into the story … I knew I wanted to expand the cast, and I knew I wanted to give each one of those characters more to do, so I knew the movie was going to be bigger and longer than ‘Fallout.'”
He added:
“At which point I said, ‘Why are we fighting this? Why are we going to try to jam this into two hours? Let’s just break it in half and make it two movies,’ … That really was the rationale behind it being a two-part movie. It wasn’t just that the story was bigger but that we wanted more emotion in the movie.”
Again: no spoilers here, so I won’t tell you how it all shakes out. But it’s worth noting that filming on the second film has wrapped, and we should be on track for the June 28, 2024 release date of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two.” Then again, something might go wrong, at which point Ethan Hunt may have to risk his life to get the movie to theaters on time. We believe in you, Ethan.