Mission: Impossible won't end with Dead Reckoning, according to the director

Despite rumors to the contrary, Mission: Impossible will continue after the upcoming Dead Reckoning two-parter.

Director Christopher McQuarrie, who is helming Dead Reckoning Parts One and Two across 2023 and 2024, told Fandango that it is 'not the end' for the action series. Additionally, they already have 'ideas for what comes next.'

Variety had previously reported last year that the two-parter will a 'sendoff' for Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt – so there's every chance the ex-IMF agent could be put out to pasture, with the franchise continuing without him.

McQuarrie, meanwhile, is only focusing on a narrower picture – and that includes ignoring any talk of Mission: Impossible competing with other prominent action icons.

"We don't see ourselves in competition with Bond or John Wick. We love those movies, and we admire those filmmakers, and we want to see those guys win. All we're really doing is competing with ourselves," McQuarrie says in the new issue of Total Film magazine, which is out on newsstands on Thursday, June 22.

"And coming away from Top Gun, we looked at that movie, and said, 'We're going to bury those guys. We're going to crush Top Gun.' That's how we look at it. Our only rivals are ourselves.”

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One, starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, and Vanessa Kirby, hits cinemas on July 10 in the UK and July 12 in the US. Part Two is currently dated July 28, 2024.

For more on what else is coming your way, check out our movie release dates calendar.