The Mission: Impossible series is noteworthy for several reasons: the big action set pieces, the intensity of Tom Cruise’s stunt work, the wild differences in style from one installment to the next, and the duration of the breaks between entries. Every film in the series thus far has been separated by at least four years, with the second installment following the 1996 original in 2000, then a six year wait for M:I III, then five years until Ghost Protocol, and four years to this summer’s Rogue Nation. But fans of the franchise may not have to wait quite so long for the next one.
In an appearance on The Daily Show last week to promote Rogue Nation, Cruise said of a sixth installment, “We’re starting to work on it now. We’ll probably start shooting it next summer.” Over the weekend, Paramount Pictures vice chairman Rob Moore confirmed Cruise’s plans, telling Variety, “We’re very happy to be developing this movie with Tom… There’s no question that Ethan Hunt deserves another film.”
Any “question” Paramount might’ve had was presumably cleared up by the fifth film’s opening weekend. Rogue Nation brought in $56 million domestically—well above the studio’s own $40 million estimates—with another $65 million coming in internationally (and it hasn’t even opened in half its potential foreign markets).
If cameras are indeed rolling next summer, that’d put a new Mission: Impossible into theaters for summer 2017—and will answer the question of whether the series’ high quality had anything to do with the fact that they weren��t trying to bang them out as quickly as possible.