Could Mission: Impossible Get A Ninth Movie After The Dead Reckoning Films? What Director Chris McQuarrie Thinks

Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise speeding dangerously in a Fiat in Mission:Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One.
(Image credit: Paramount/Skydance)

Movie franchises are where all the movie studios are currently focused. Nobody wants to let a successful franchise end when a new movie could potentially be worth hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. We know we’re getting two more Mission: Impossible movies in the future, and based on everything we know about Mission: Impossible 7 it's going to be epic, but then what happens? Director Christopher McQuarrie certainly isn’t promising anymore but he’s far from ready to commit to anything after Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning.

Considering the success of Mission: Impossible - Fallout it wasn’t exactly a shock when it was announced Tom Cruise and company would be back for more. What was surprising was the announcement of two upcoming movies. Mission: Impossible - Dread Reckoning Part One will finally release later this summer with Part Two on the way next year. A big two-part event could be seen as a finale to the franchise, but writer/director Christopher McQuarrie is a bit vague when discussing the possibility of a ninth film. He tells EW

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.

McQuarrie seemingly compares making a Mission: Impossible movie to being part of the IMF, in that things, are going to go haywire, but in the end, everything will turn out ok. The question is how we define that. In this case will “turning out alright” mean an ending that could lead to Mission: Impossible 9, or would it be a definitive ending to the franchise?

What seems clear is that even if there is a specific plan right now, regardless of what that plan is. McQuarrie understands things could change. They could be setting things up for another movie now and then end up doing something else. They could just as easily be planning to end things with Dead Reckoning: Part Two and then change their minds. 

Of course, the biggest question in making a new Mission: Impossible would be how would a ninth movie outdo all those that came before. McQuarrie certainly knows one thing a theoretical ninth movie won’t have, saying… 

I am all set with trains until the end of time.

We know that Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One is going to have a pretty epic train sequence entirely because Christopher McQuarrie wanted to crash a train but it sounds like he got his fill from the experience.

We thought we were coming to the end of the Fast & Furious series and now it looks like we may get more movies than we thought, so it would not be a shock to see something similar happen with Mission: Impossible.  

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.