Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning trailer teases Ethan Hunt’s swan song

The official trailer for Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning Part One (also known as Mission: Impossible 7) is here, packed with global intrigue and jaw-dropping stunts that fans of this hugely successful franchise have come to expect. The trailer was shown exclusively at CinemaCon in April and was slated to be released this coming weekend, when the highly anticipated Top Gun: Maverick finally (finally!) in the cinema. But an online leak is said to have forced Paramount’s hand, so we see star Tom Cruise riding his motorcycle off a cliff a week early. However, we will have to wait until next summer – which is 2023 – to see the film.

(Mild spoilers for previous films in the franchise below.)

Launched in 1996 with the first Mission Impossible, the franchise is one of the highest-grossing film series, with combined worldwide box office receipts to date of more than $3.5 billion. The first film was set six years after the 1988-1990 TV series, itself a sequel to the original TV series that ran from 1966 to 1973. Cruise’s character, Impossible Missions Force (IMF) agent Ethan Hunt, was accused of the murder of his team during a failed mission and falsely accused of selling government secrets to an arms dealer. Over the course of the film, he unmasked the real culprit and cleared his name.

Five more films followed, most recently from 2015 rogue nation and 2018’s precipitationboth directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who is also at the helm Dead Reckoning parts one and Two† (McQuarrie won an Oscar for his screenplay for The usual suspectsand also directed Cruise in 2012 Jack Reacher.) Both recent Mission Impossible movies were box-office hits, grossing $682 million and $791 million worldwide, respectively. precipitation was also the most critically acclaimed, with many considering it the best installment in the franchise. Fans were thrilled when McQuarrie signed on to write and direct the seventh and final episode.

Paramount was originally intended for both parts of Dead Reckoning to be filmed back-to-back, but that plan was scuttled in early 2021. Production was repeatedly delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (A recording of Cruise yelling at crew members for violating COVID protocols on set — thus risking even more costly delays — went viral in December 2020.) There was also a fire on a motorcycle stunt platform while filming in Norway and a dispute over whether or not McQuarrie would be able to blow up a 1908 bridge in Poland for a pivotal train wreck action scene. The scene was eventually filmed on a set built in an abandoned quarry.

Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg will reprise their respective roles as IMF computer technician Luther Stickell and IMF field technical agent Benji Dunn, while Rebecca Ferguson will be back as former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust, her character in rogue nation and precipitation† Dead Reckoning is intended to be the swan song of Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, so we’ll also see the return of Henry Czerny’s Eugene Kittridge, the former IMF director in the first Mission Impossible movie. Angela Bassett – who played precipitationCIA Director — had originally signed up to return as Erika Sloane, but travel restrictions due to COVID-19 thwarted that plan.

Cruise still insists on doing many of his own stunts, including that infamous motorcycle scene at the end of the trailer. (We don’t see how he survives, but survives he must, given the existence of Part two.) The cast also includes Hayley Atwell as Grace; Vanessa Kirby as Alanna Mitsopolis, aka the White Widow, a black market arms dealer who is the daughter of the villain “Max” in the first film; Frederick Schmidt as Alanna’s brother Zola Mitsopolis, acting as her enforcer; and Shea Whigham as Jasper Briggs.

Rob Delaney, Indira Varma, Mark Gatiss, Cary Elwes, Charles Parnell, Pom Klementieff, Lampros Kalfuntzos and Greg Tarzan Davis will also appear in undefined roles. There’s not much indication of the plot, but we can assume that the Big Bad – this time played by Esai Morales – will have a diabolical plot to destroy and/or dominate the world, and Ethan and his brave IMF team and allies will fight like hell to thwart him.

The trailer opens with a lone figure on horseback galloping through a desert, before spilling out into fast-paced scenes around the world – including the obligatory nightclub scene with scantily clad spinning bodies. There are car chases, gun battles, a boat trip in Venice, Ethan and the Big Bad fighting atop a speeding train and the release of a deadly gas – everything you want from a spy action movie. “Your days of fighting for the so-called greater good are over,” we hear Czerny’s Kittridge say to Ethan, adding that it’s time to pick a side. You fight to save an ideal that doesn’t exist. Never did.” I suspect Hunt will fight for that elusive ideal anyway.

Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning Part One opens in theaters on July 14, 2023. Part two began filming in March and is currently slated for release on June 28, 2024.

View image by YouTube/Paramount Pictures