Christopher McQuarrie Downplays Report Of Tom Cruise Exiting After ‘Mission: Impossible 8’

There have been suggestions that Tom Cruise‘s time playing super-spy Ethan Hunt in the “Mission: Impossible” films could be coming to end with “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 2,” which is currently filming in the United Kingdom and expected to shoot elsewhere in the world. Variety previously reported the film would become a “send-off” for Hunt. “The plan is for the seventh and eighth films to serve as a sendoff for Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character — a “culmination” of the entire series, as one insider described it,” the report claimed.

That might not actually be the case. Instead of addressing the report’s claims head-on, director Christopher McQuarrie said on Light The Fuse podcast (Listen below) that folks really should take stories concerning Cruise, the film, and himself with a grain of salt, insisting that they’re not always terribly accurate.

READ MORE: Christopher McQuarrie Teaming Up With Tom Cruise On A “Gnarlier” Post-‘Mission: Impossible’ Film

“Let me tell you, I’ve been working with Tom Cruise for 15 years and I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been standing next to the man, witnessed an event, and then read about it in the trades the next day and none of what they describe is actually true,” McQuarrie said in response to Cruise ending his tenure on the “Mission: Impossible” franchise after reports.

While the next two installments are indeed two parts of a single story, McQuarrie continued to question the reporting on the film’s production and doesn’t take media reports that seriously.

“I read that ‘Mission’ was going to be shot concurrently and then we decided not to do that,” the director said. “When you read articles in the trades, just put the imaginary word in front of the headline: ‘The Agenda Is…’ When you read ‘anonymous sources’ or ‘sources close to the production say,’ that’s somebody putting it out there for a specific reason. That’s someone wanting others to think that for a specific reason, and you can never know for sure what those reasons are. You learn to ignore it and laugh at it. In today’s world, you wait 17 minutes, and another news cycle will sweep it away.”

McQuarrie is likely commenting on the reports that focused on Cruise’s press commitments causing production delays, and the multiple COVID-19 outbreaks on set including himself being hospitalized in London during the extensive shoot for “Dead Reckoning Part 1.” There was another story that production costs had ballooned to over $290 million, making it the most expensive film in the franchise.

The next movie will see Cruise star alongside folks such as Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Angela Bassett, Henry Czerny, Pom Klementieff, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham, Esai Morales, Cary Elwes, Rob Delaney, Indira Varma, Charles Parnell, and Mark Gatiss.

Meanwhile, “Dead Recking Part 2” recently added Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, and Holt McCallany to the cast.

If you’ve been keeping up with Paramount’s multiple release slate changes, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1” hits theaters on July 14, 2023, and “Dead Reckoning 2” arrives on June 28, 2024.