Mission: Impossible 9 - Will It Happen?

This article contains spoilers for "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning."

For 30 years, star and producer Tom Cruise has chosen to accept eight impossible missions as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, and one impossible mission as himself. That latter mission was for him to take a successful, long-running, and generally well-regarded TV series and bring it to the big screen, turning it into a massively successful and influential film franchise. Although Cruise's long career is littered with hits and milestone movies, the "M:I" films represent his signature work. They're also, along with "Top Gun," only one of just two long-running film series that he's a part of (RIP, "The Mummy" and the Dark Universe).

Given how important "Mission" has been to Cruise, to his frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, and to action/spy/blockbuster films in general over the last couple decades, it feels strange to consider this month's "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning" (the 8th film in the series) might be the last installment ever. Sure, 20 years ago or so, it was still fashionable for long running film series (besides, say, James Bond) to come to a conclusion, but in a post-Marvel Cinematic Universe landscape, it seems unusual for any successful franchise to come to a total halt. Before anyone had seen "The Final Reckoning," it wasn't clear whether Cruise and McQuarrie were going to close the book on "Mission" in a fashion more akin to "The Dark Knight Rises" or "Avengers: Endgame." Would Ethan Hunt's incredible luck finally run out? Would Cruise kill off the only character he's played more times than any other?

Now that "The Final Reckoning" has been revealed and we know that Hunt lives to see another sunrise, the speculation about his future and the "M:I" series will only increase. While it's still unclear whether Cruise will return as Hunt in a future film (and especially in what capacity), the prospect of another "Mission: Impossible" now seems much more likely than not. It feels like the impossible question is no longer "if," but how and when it will happen.

Setting aside the obvious "because the latest installment is in theaters now as of this writing" explanation as to the current status of a 9th "Mission," it's important to point out that the "M:I" films have traditionally always been made on their own unique schedule. Cruise and his revolving door of collaborators (until McQuarrie dropped in with 2015's "Rogue Nation," of course) have always stuck to their own timeline as opposed to a set release plan. The only reason why the 7th and 8th installments ("Dead Reckoning" and "The Final Reckoning") have had the shortest amount of time between releases — which is two years apart — is because they were conceived, produced, and shot as two halves of one longform story ("Dead Reckoning" was originally released with the "Part One" subtitle, of course).

While it's true that there's never been a concrete production plan for the franchise, Cruise has seen to it that the films have been made generally around four years after the last one. To wit: there was a four-year gap between the first "Mission: Impossible" and part two, a five-year break between two and three, four years between three and "Ghost Protocol," four years between that and "Rogue Nation," three years between that and "Fallout," and five years between that and "Dead Reckoning." Given that history, we likely won't be hearing about any ninth "Mission" for at least another three or four years, and that's if Cruise remains the main engine behind the series.

There's a possibility that Cruise and Ethan could take a back seat in the franchise going forward (more on that in a bit), and if so, Paramount Pictures might appoint another producer or guru to shepherd the franchise into a new phase. Yet it seems most likely that Cruise will keep the reins of the series, whether or not he's still going to be the protagonist of it, and according to his commentary track with McQuarrie on "Fallout," these films aren't planned so much as begun on a whim, with the actor and director becoming excited by stunts they wish to shoot and/or perform. So, unclear as it may be, it's more up to Cruise and McQuarrie's imaginations as to when a ninth "Mission" will happen than anything else.

During the lead-up to both "Dead Reckoning" and "The Final Reckoning," Cruise and McQuarrie were questioned about the future of the "Mission" series, and being the consummate showmen they are, they refused to give concrete answers one way or another. In 2023, McQuarrie spoke to Entertainment Weekly about potential future plans for the series. McQuarrie answered by drawing a comparison between the IMF team's mission plans in the films and the making of the films themselves, stating:

"Look, we're still shooting 8 and there's any number of ways that that story could play out. When you're watching Mission: Impossible, and watching the team go through these adventures, you're having some sense of what it's like to make a Mission: Impossible movie. There's always a plan, the plan always changes, everything goes completely awry, and hopefully everything always turns out alright in the end. But you never really fully understand, or trust where it is you're going, until you get there."

Again, anyone who's delved into the commercially released special features of the films (particularly McQuarrie's installments) knows that so many aspects of each movie change during the making of the film, let alone its conception. So while McQuarrie may seem cagey there, he's not lying, either.

When Cruise was asked by Empire during the beginning of the press tour for "The Final Reckoning" if the film was to be Ethan's last go-round, he was certainly being cagey, in service of being a responsible star and producer in hyping up the movie he's promoting, saying that in order to know Ethan's fate:

"You gotta see the movie. It's a hard thing for me to discuss at the moment, because it really is something that you have to experience."

While neither Cruise nor McQuarrie ever hinted at the film being the end for Ethan (because, at least in terms of the character's life, it's not), they did make several remarks about "The Final Reckoning" being some sort of conclusion to the series, or at least this chapter of it. Cruise called the movie "an epic, emotional journey of the entire franchise," while McQuarrie was a little more firm:

"It is, I hope, the satisfying conclusion to a 30-year story arc. I'm pretty confident that people are going to feel that the title was appropriate."

So, while neither man had any direct comments regarding a ninth "Mission" — they're there to promote "The Final Reckoning," after all — their remarks are notably open-ended, implying that while this film is the culmination of all that's come before it, that may not necessarily mean there's not going to be anything after it. Yet, on the red carpet for the film, Cruise was quoted as saying "It's the final! It's not called 'final' for nothing." So, as McQuarrie said, the plan always changes.

If a "Mission: Impossible 9" ever happens, it'll probably feel close to what the first few films in the franchise felt like: a total mystery. After all, this franchise began as a showcase for a revolving door of filmmakers, with each new director bringing their interpretation of the series (and Ethan) to their movie. Although it's a quality which McQuarrie has dutifully attempted to keep intact during his four-film tenure on the series, there's only so much a tiger can change its stripes, as it were. So the first question is whether a ninth "Mission" would be made by McQuarrie or not. If not, then all bets are well and truly off. If so, we could expect that Cruise and Ethan will return, but it's not clear in what way.

The conclusion of "The Final Reckoning" sees Ethan risk life and limb in order to obtain a poison pill electronic device which will trap the source code of the rogue, anti-god AI known as the Entity, effectively neutralizing it. As Ethan learns at the beginning of "The Final Reckoning," it's no longer a viable option to simply kill the Entity, as it's been allowed to infiltrate every level of every technology that exists in the entire world, meaning that killing it would decimate society as we know it, throwing everything into a sudden Dark Age and resulting in a massive loss of life. Additionally, no world government or organization could be trusted with control of it, since the temptation to use it to take over the world would be ever present. Thus, Ethan and his team decide that Ethan should be appointed as the Entity's keeper, an ever-vigilant watchdog who literally holds the fate of the world in his hands, so to speak.

It's a conclusion that, while certainly not killing Ethan, gives him a mission that he has to undertake for the rest of his natural life. So, it's entirely possible and plausible that Ethan would no longer be available to undertake any subsequent missions that might turn up, and that's where his newly formed team comes in. This team even has a new Team Leader appointed by Ethan himself, Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), seemingly for this reason, as it allows Ethan to disappear into the shadows with the trapped Entity.

So, a ninth "Mission" could go a number of ways: it could involve a completely new team with new actors and characters headed off to save the world. It could include this new Dunn-led team, and feature a mixture of old and new faces while Ethan remains effectively retired. Or it could involve Ethan being coaxed out of retirement to face a new threat, either in an advisory-only capacity or as a fully-fledged team member once again.

Although the revolving door of directors for the "M:I" series ended with "Rogue Nation," that didn't stop the films from featuring a different ensemble of actors for each installment. Thus, the only actor to be certain to star in a "Mission" movie was Cruise, and now even that is up in the air. Given how tied to the series he is, however, it's still a safe bet that a ninth "Mission," should it be made, would feature Cruise in some way, either in a cameo role or larger. After Cruise, the only other actor who appeared in every film prior to now was Ving Rhames' Luther, but alas, he has a heroic demise in "The Final Reckoning." Still, he could appear posthumously somehow, a la Joe Pantoliano's Captain Howard in "Bad Boys: Ride or Die."

After Cruise and Rhames, the most frequent supporting actor has been Pegg as Benji, and given how "The Final Reckoning" sets him up as a new Team Leader with Grace (Hayley Atwell), Paris (Pom Klementieff), and Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) as his teammates, it would seem natural that they'd all play a part in the next film. After that, it's all complete speculation: maybe Cruise would want to bring back a prior actor/character who hasn't been killed off (where is Jeremy Renner's Brandt these days, anyway?), maybe he'd want to bring over more of his "Top Gun" proteges (Glen Powell or Monica Barbaro, anyone?), maybe he'd invite some new stars to the table, or some combination thereof. It should be said that, given Cruise and McQuarrie's most recent comments, we shouldn't be expecting news of another "Mission" anytime soon. Yet, especially if "The Final Reckoning" is successful, another mission is certainly, well, possible.