MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION: Skydiving Stunt

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is about to hit cinemas, and yet talks for the next film are already well under way and Tom Cruise has revealed he’s already on board.

“We’ll probably start shooting it next summer”, Cruise continued.

“Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation“, a Paramount release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for “sequences of intense action and violence”.

Right from the start, our hero Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is an outsider.

When J.J. Abrams took over the third installment in 2006, that’s when the movie was supercharged with a terrifying ruthless villain (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and an elaborate plot that kept us on the edge of our seat, just like “Ghost Protocol“, the fourth film, did, with Brad Bird’s sharp direction.

Variety notes that that’s an accelerated schedule for the venerable action franchise, which typically has at least a four-year gap between releases.

The film’s producer, David Ellison also commented on a possible “Top Gun 2” and Tom Cruise starring in it again. As far as I’m concerned, the dude who created Keyser Soze is allowed to get as many cracks at directing as he wants. Rogue Nation director Christopher McQuarrie isn’t expected to return, as each installment of the franchise has had a different director.

Said cool stuff includes a lushly gripping assassination attempt at an opera (recalling Hitchcock’s Man Who Knew Too Much remake), a terrific rough-and-tumble fistfight, an inventive reveal involving the British prime minister (played, in a wonderful in-joke for In the Loop fans, by Tom Hollander), and an enigmatic female lead (Rebecca Ferguson-remember that name) whose allegiances and trustworthiness are in an nearly scene-to-scene flux. You have to feel bad for Jeremy Renner who mostly stands around talking this time, despite being seemingly groomed to replace Cruise in Ghost Protocol. In fact, it tells you something about how confident the filmmakers are in the confection they’ve concocted that the big “Holy cow!” stunt prominently placed in all the trailers and adorning all the posters-Cruise dangling precariously by his hands from the outside of an airplane-is part of Rogue Nation’s teaser sequence, tossed off before the opening credits have even rolled, Bond-style.