Paramount Pictures will add another four months to the wait time for Mission: Impossible 7 to hit theaters with Top Gun: Maverick taking its release date.
Mission: Impossible 7 has been delayed, the latest in a string of movies getting postponed from their planned theatrical releases due to the ongoing pandemic. Before today, the sequel was set to bow on Memorial Day weekend next year with a scheduled May 27, 2022 release date. Now, Paramount Pictures has officially pushed the next Mission: Impossible movie back from that weekend to Sept. 30, 2022, adding about another four months to the wait.
Taking the Mission: Impossible 7 slot on that weekend will be another Tom Cruise blockbuster that Paramount has similarly delayed. Top Gun: Maverick was set to be released just in time for Thanksgiving this year, but rising COVID cases have convinced the studio to pull the anticipated sequel from the schedule for now. As both of these Cruise-starring franchises come with high budgets with the potential to gross a billion dollars, they’re not the kinds of movies you’re going to see heading straight to Paramount+.
Christopher McQuarrie wrote and directed Mission: Impossible 7, which is the third installment of the series to be helmed by the filmmaker. He also produced alongside Cruise, J. J. Abrams, David Ellison, and Jake Myers. Cruise stars in the lead role as part of a cast that also includes Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Henry Czerny, and Cary Elwes.
The pandemic has made the production and subsequent release of Mission: Impossible 7 very difficult. There have been repeated delays due to the virus making its way on set. At one point, Cruise was captured on an audio recording shouting at crew members for violating COVID-19 protocols. The actor later explained that he feels passionate about taking the safety precautions seriously as he’s been working so hard to keep the set safe so the cast and crew can finish filming.
“I said what I said. There was a lot at stake at that point. But it wasn’t my entire crew. I had the crew leave the set, and it was just select people,” Cruise said of the incident, via Empire. “All those emotions were going through my mind. And for the whole crew to know that we’d started rolling on a movie was just a huge relief… It was very emotional.”
Reportedly, Cruise had spent around $700,000 for the cast and crew of the movie to live on cruise ships with the hope of creating a safe space for everyone to work while avoiding COVID-19 breakouts. He had also said that he was in close contact with studios, insurance companies, and producers to set the “gold standard” of how movie projects like this should be filmed during the pandemic. Cruise’s anger in the audio may not have been flattering, though many understood it and even praised the actor for taking the virus so seriously.
Mission: Impossible 7 is now set to be released in theaters on Sept. 30, 2022. It’s one of many movies to be pushed back by Paramount Pictures, as the sequels Top Gun: Maverick and Jackass Forever have also been delayed. Will the movie theater business ever see a return to normalcy? This news comes to us from Deadline.
