Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie planning musical and Tropic Thunder spin-off

Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder — (Image credit: Paramount)

Tom Cruise and Mission: Impossible 8 director Christopher McQuarrie are working on multiple new movie ideas together, according to Deadline – including a musical and a Tropic Thunder spin-off.

All the projects would be written by McQuarrie in collaboration with Cruise. One of these potential movies is an all-singing, all-dancing musical, while another is an actioner with franchise potential. The musical wouldn't be the first time Cruise has sung on film – he appeared as the legendary rocker Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages.

The pair are also keen to bring back Les Grossman, the bad-tempered studio executive Cruise played in the 2008 action parody Tropic Thunder. According to the trade publication, it's unclear whether Grossman would be the star of a new movie or whether he would just make an appearance in one of the other two projects. Either way, it looks like we'll probably be seeing more of Les Grossman.

Next up for Cruise and McQuarrie, though, is Mission: Impossible 7 (officially titled Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1), which is due to be released on July 14, 2023. This will be followed by Part 2 on June 28, 2024. Although this was rumored to be Cruise's last outing in that particular franchise, McQuarrie cryptically instructed fans not to believe everything they read in a recent interview.

The duo also worked together on Top Gun: Maverick, with Cruise starring as test pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell and McQuarrie writing and producing. The sequel has now passed $1.3 billion at the global box office, making it the highest-grossing film of Cruise's career.

While we wait for Ethan Hunt to return to our screens, check out our guide to the other upcoming movies to get excited about this year and beyond.

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.