Mission: Impossible movies are generally a massive undertaking, with a single movie taking years to conceptualize, plan, shoot, and edit. And having been helmed by a different director every time, most viewers thought Christopher McQuarrie’s time as the franchise director was up. It came as a massive surprise then to learn that not only was McQuarrie returning for a Mission: Impossible movie, but the latest chapter in the series will be split into two-parts with a cliffhanger ending.
Collider’s Steve Weintraub asked McQuarrie the same question at the movie’s premiere. McQuarrie reasoned that the film’s burgeoning scope, due in part to an expanded roster of characters, meant that there simply wasn’t enough time to cram everything into a single movie while giving all characters meaty story arcs. They therefore decided to split the movie into two and shoot as much of them back-to-back as possible.
Well, we knew with Fallout. Fallout really grew because of all the character and emotion we were putting into the story, all the things that we had discovered in Rogue Nation that was so unexpected. I knew I wanted to expand the cast, and I knew I wanted to give each one of those characters more to do, so I knew the movie was going to be bigger and longer than Fallout. And at which point I said, ‘Why are we fighting this? Why are we going to try to jam this into two hours? Let’s just break it in half and make it two movies.’ That really was the rationale behind it being a two-part movie. It just it wasn’t just that the story was bigger but that we wanted more emotion in the movie.
It’s great to hear that McQuarrie was unwilling to compromise on the movie’s emotion while also preserving the scale and scope of its action sequences. Naturally, such an endeavor would be financially heavy on the studio as well, seeing as Paramount Pictures would essentially be funding two movies upfront. While filming both movies together eases production in certain aspects (shooting scenes in the same location in one go for instance), such a plan ends up opening a whole different can of worms related to logistical challenges. McQuarrie and team definitely faced this and star Tom Cruise didn’t leave any opportunity on the table to remind McQuarrie when things went wrong.
At that time, the studio were actually very genuinely excited about it. And, you know, I think we were excited about it too. And then there were times when we were on set, and Tom would look at me, and he’d say, ‘This was your idea. Just remember that.’
But the complexity of filming these movies together wasn’t entirely lost on McQuarrie, who commented how filming on Dead Reckoning Part One needed to be stopped at times to use the weather and locations to their advantage in canning a scene from Dead Reckoning Part Two. In the process, he also let it slip out that the second part does not currently have an ending in sight.
Yeah, it’s massive, and it was complicated by the fact that certain things in Part Two required stopping Part One to shoot them, whether it was because of weather or actor availability. And so, with all the other challenges that were confronting this movie while we were making it, there was the challenge of stopping in the middle, not even knowing what the full movie was, and trying to predict what it was in the second film. It’s a testament to how great this team is and how patient this cast is. It’s really something.
By now, these movies clearly have an improvisational element to them in how the cast and crew plan the script around the action sequences. With more than half the movie in the can, I’m sure McQuarrie and co will be able to figure out a satisfying third act that concludes the two-parter, while potentially leaving the room open for more movies to follow. Check out McQuarrie’s full interview in the embed below.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One releases in theaters on July 12, 2023. Its sequel, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two arrives in theaters next year on June 28, 2024.
