Post-Tom Cruise's Outburst, Looks Like Mission: Impossible 7 May Be Shutting Down For The Holidays Early

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible - Fallout

This week marked an unusual chapter in the journey of putting Mission: Impossible 7 together. On Tuesday, audio was released of Tom Cruise yelling at some crew members on set for allegedly breaking COVID-19 guidelines. Cruise’s tirade soon captured the internet’s attention, and now word’s come in that in the aftermath of this leak, Cruise has decided to shut down Mission: Impossible 7’s production for the holidays a little early.

According to The Sun, which first shared the Tom Cruise audio, the Mission: Impossible 7 actor/producer is wrapping up filming now and will then head to Miami to spend the holidays with his son, Connor, who he had with Nicole Kidman. According to an unnamed source who spoke with the publication, it’s “been exhausting keeping the production on track for so long, and it’s not getting any easier.” As such, Cruise decided it was time for a break, especially given that “tensions have been mounting for a while.”

Mission: Impossible 7 director/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie has seemingly confirmed that work on the spy blockbuster has concluded for the year with the following post:

A photo posted by on

For those who missed the news of Tom Cruise’s outburst when it first became public, the man who’s brought Ethan Hunt to life for nearly two and a half decades allegedly started after seeing two crew members standing within two meters of each other on the Mission: Impossible 7 set in Warner Bros Studios’ Leavesden branch. Like so many film productions, Mission: Impossible 7 has had to enact numerous health and safety measures in order to keep shooting while the pandemic continues. In recent weeks, Cruise has been sighted wearing a mask, and clearly he wasn’t pleased by these extra protools being ignored, saying that anyone who continued to flaunt them would be fired. Reportedly 50 people were nearby when Cruise was yelling.

Following this outburst, Tom Cruise reportedly had another “eruption,” and this has led to five crew members quitting the Mission: Impossible 7 production. Mission: Impossible 7, which is shooting back-to-back with Mission: Impossible 8, has been plagued with delays ever since late February, which is when principal photography was originally supposed to begin. Cameras finally started rolling in July, and at the beginning of September, Christopher McQuarrie announced that the main shoot had finally begun.

Tom Cruise has spared no expense to ensure that Mission: Impossible 7 can keep filming during the pandemic, which includes paying for a cruise ship for the cast and crew to stay on while they were in Norway. However, just like The Batman and other major productions, Mission: Impossible 7 hasn’t been able to avoid COVID-19 entirely. In October, filming in Italy was halted after tested positive for the virus, leading Cruise to have “crisis talks” with Christopher McQuarrie.

While Mission: Impossible 7 plot details are still being kept closely guarded, we know most, if not all of the main players who are involved in movie. The familiar faces joining Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt include Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell, Simon Pegg’s Benji Dunn, Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust, Vanessa Kirby’s Alanna Mitsopolis, Angela Bassett’s Erika Sloane and Henry Czerny’s Eugene Kittridge. The next Mission: Impossible franchise installment’s new faces consist (so far) of Esai Morales, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham and Pom Klementieff.

As things stand now, Mission: Impossible 7 will hit theaters on November 19, 2021, with Mission: Impossible 8 following on November 4, 2022. Scan through our 2021 release schedule to learn about other forthcoming movies.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.