Want to know the secret to becoming Hollywood’s hottest screenwriter? It turns out all you have to do is write a British superhero sitcom that no one watches. At least that’s how U.K. scribe Drew Pearce broke through; he was behind the excellent but little-seen ITV2 show “No Heroics” a few years back, and now he’s seemingly writing every blockbuster in theaters.
That series was mooted for a remake at ABC starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Eliza Coupe and Josh Gad, but never went to series. However, it brought him to the attention of Marvel, who hired him to adapt Brian K Vaughan‘s excellent series “Runaways.” That film didn’t happen, but it led to the plum gig of co-writing “Iron Man 3” with Shane Black, which in turn impressed Robert Downey Jr. enough to get him the job of writing a third “Sherlock Holmes” picture as well as script polishes on “Pacific Rim” and “Godzilla“ among many others. And now, according to Heat Vision, he’s lining up another franchise, as he’s been picked out to write the script for “Mission: Impossible 5.”
Paramount, Bad Robot and Skydance are again teaming on the picture, and another writer-turned-director, “Jack Reacher” helmer Christopher McQuarrie, is circling the project, although there’s no word if he’ll be co-writing the screenplay with Pearce or just directing. The last entry, “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” was both the most successful and the best entry in the Tom Cruise franchise, so Pearce has some big shoes to fill. But he’s demonstrated at this point that he’s more than got the skillset for this kind of picture, and we’re genuinely excited he’s on board.
The scribe has several other projects around town, including action-comedy “Secretaries’ Day,” superhero flick “The Mighty,” and Jason Segel comedy “The Other F Word,” but The Hollywood Reporter also say that he’s working on a script for his directorial debut, which “Pacific Rim” producer Mary Parent will be shepherding. The trade says that the plan is to shoot “Mission: Impossible 5” in the fall once Cruise wraps Guy Ritchie‘s “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” so it sounds like we could be seeing it at Christmas 2014, or at the very latest, the summer of 2015.
