Everything you need to know about Mission: Impossible 7 (2024)

Mission: Impossible 7 is finally here as Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt attempts yet another really difficult, some might say impossible, mission.

There's been conflicting reports about whether Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is the first of a two-part finale to the overall series. Could this mission be one that not even Ethan can solve?

But what we do know is that Mission: Impossible 8 is on the way next year, so it's fair to assume that not everything will be resolved in the new movie. (Let's hope there's not a Fast X-style cliffhanger though.)

Now that the movie is out now in cinemas, here's everything you need to know about Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

It has been confirmed that Mission: Impossible 7 runs for 163 minutes and 13 seconds or two hours and 43 minutes.

That makes the new movie the longest Mission: Impossible movie to date. Will Part Two be even longer? We'll have to wait until next year to find out.

Even though it's the first of a two-part story, Mission: Impossible 7 does not have a credit scene of any kind, so there's nothing to wait around for.

We'll have to wait until the first footage of the sequel to get a tease of what's to come.

After several release date delays, Mission: Impossible 7 arrived in UK cinemas on July 10, two days ahead of its US release on July 12.

It was initially scheduled for release on July 23, 2021, and was delayed several times after that from November 19, 2021 to May 27, 2022, and then another delay to September 30, 2022.

The movie itself wrapped filming in September 2021, which makes you think it would have been able to hit its target. However, with all the shifts in the industry at large, it's unsurprising it continued to shift.

The sequel has not been without is controversy though, with the reported destruction of a 111-year-old bridge, as well as that on-set rant from Tom Cruise.

Given the delays, Mission: Impossible 8 (aka Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two) also moved and now will be released on June 28, 2024. (Assuming that the current writers' strike doesn't affect anything.)

The first trailer for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One was released way back in May 2022, paired with Top Gun: Maverick in cinemas.

If you haven't seen it yet, check it out below:

In December 2022, we got an extended behind-the-scenes look at Cruise's latest insane stunt for the new movie in December 2022.

It's been called the biggest stunt in cinema history and having seen this footage, we can absolutely believe that. If you're not afraid of heights, check it out below:

We had to wait until May 2023 for the next full trailer for Mission: Impossible 7, but it was worth the wait.

It revealed more teasers for that huge motorbike stunt, as well as all of the other big-screen spectacle we can expect from the new movie.

Tom Cruise is, of course, back as Ethan Hunt for his seventh mission, and he'll be joined by a lot of familiar faces.

Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg are back as IMF agents Luther Stickell and Benji Dunn, respectively, while Rebecca Ferguson returns as the enigmatic former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust and Vanessa Kirby is also back as arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis, aka the White Widow.

Frederick Schmidt will also return as Alanna's brother Zola, but while we had been expecting Angela Bassett back as CIA director Erika Sloane, she had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.

A surprise return comes in the form of Henry Czerny's Eugene Kittridge, the former director of the IMF who we last saw way back in the first Mission: Impossible movie. McQuarrie said that his return had been thought about since Rogue Nation.

"Early in this process I had an inkling that there could be a place for Kittridge – the tone of the movie, the shape of the movie lent itself to that. I realised, 'Kittridge has got to be in this scene'," he explained.

"I had written it not knowing who was in it, and then suddenly Kittridge came into it and the scene was transformed, it was really fun. I got to call Henry Czerny and say, 'You're in! Will you be in it?' He was great about it."

Nicholas Hoult was set to be the new movie's main villain, but schedule clashes meant he had to drop out and was replaced by Ozark star Esai Morales to take over the role of Gabriel.

Another major newcomer to the world is Hayley Atwell as Grace, who has been described by McQuarrie as a "destructive force of nature". It's not clear whether she'll be on IMF's side or if her priorities are more ambiguous.

"The interesting thing we're exploring is her resistance to a situation she finds herself in," Atwell teased. "How she starts off, where she becomes. The journey of what she comes into and what is asked of her and potentially where she ends up."

The new movie also stars Pom Klementieff as Gabriel's assassin Paris, Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis as government agents Briggs and Degas, and Cary Elwes as Denlinger, director of national intelligence.

Rob Delaney, Indira Varma, Mark Gatiss and Charles Parnell make up the members of The Community, which appears to be a cross-agency board that decides US policy.

A last-minute addition to the movie was former EastEnders star Alex James Phelps who, according to McQuarrie, helped to smooth out a potential plot issue.

Since we know Mission: Impossible 8 is coming, some of the supporting cast have already been confirmed to return in the next instalment, including Vanessa Kirby and Hayley Atwell.

We've also had our first looks already at some new cast members for the eighth movie, including Holt McCallany, Janet McTeer and Nick Offerman.

And although he definitely won't be in the seventh movie, Henry Cavill could be set for a surprise return as the villainous August Walker, aka John Lark, in the eighth movie despite his apparent death in Fallout.

"There is no such thing as death in movies, only unavailability," teased McQuarrie to The Hollywood Reporter of Cavill's return.

Could we see Jeremy Renner back as IMF agent William Brandt? The star missed out on Fallout due to his Marvel commitments at the time of filming, but the character is still alive in the Mission: Impossible world so watch this space.

As with Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the new movie (and the eighth movie) has been written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie.

We might have seen the trailers, we're still unclear exactly what the new movie will be about, other than it'll obviously feature Ethan Hunt doing something he probably shouldn't, while avoiding authority figures and other rogues.

As mentioned before, it's only the first part of a two-part story and there's a good reason for that.

"Going into this, I said, 'I want to take what we learned from Fallout and apply it to every character in the movie. I want everyone to have an emotional arc... I just want the movie to have more feeling across the board," McQuarrie explained.

"We know that with the addition of extra characters and the addition of storylines for the team, the movie's gonna be three hours long. In reality that means with us doing it it will be 3 ½.

"Who are we kidding? Let's just call it four, cut it in half and make it two movies. Now, the story can just kind of breathe."

Whether that means the seventh movie will end with a major cliffhanger, a la Avengers: Infinity War, remains to be seen.

As for that ominous title, McQuarrie has explained that too. "There are many things emerging from Ethan's past," he said of the new movie.

"Dead Reckoning is a navigational term. It means you're picking a course based solely on your last known position and that becomes quite the metaphor not only for Ethan, but several characters."

One thing we can guarantee though is that Ethan Hunt will be getting himself into crazy situations that involved Cruise carrying out some major stunts. Even for the star, he undertook a seriously dangerous stunt for the new movie.

It sees him ride a motorcycle off a large ramp atop a cliff, launch from the bike and parachute safely to the ground. "If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp," Cruise recalled.

"The helicopter [filming the stunt] was a problem, because I didn't want to be hammering down that ramp at top speed and get hit by a stone... I had about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don't want to get tangled in the bike. If I do, that's not going to end well."

Fortunately, Cruise survived the shoot without any major injuries unlike that time on Fallout when he broke his ankle.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is out now in cinemas.

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