I won’t be seeing Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation until Thursday night at the absolute earliest, but that won’t stop Tom Cruise from discussing the possibility of a sixth installment in the long-running action franchise.
“I love making these movies. Mission [Impossible] is the first film I ever produced,” Cruise told Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” last night. “Now this is the fifth one. This is the fifth one. It’s pretty amazing because … I thought if I could keep making these kinds of movies,” Cruise continues, at which point Stewart cuts him off and points out:
“I think you — I mean if I may, and I don’t mean to be presumptuous — I think you can. I’m pretty sure it’s not like Death to Smoochy where they’re like, ‘One and done!’ You can get in there and knock around a few more.”
Below-the-belt shots at Death to Smoochy aside, Stewart has a point. The Mission: Impossible franchise is alive and well, with Ghost Protocol pulling in a series-best $694.7 million at the worldwide box office in 2011. Variety pegs its opening weekend estimate for Rogue Nation in the low $40 million range, but glowing reviews could push that number higher and frankly I’m even more interested to see how it does as we progress through August. Fox’s Fantastic Four reboot is really the only big movie hitting theaters next month, and positive word-of-mouth could be the key to driving up the box office gross of Cruise’s fifth Mission: Impossible installment.
And so, on the eve of the release of Rogue Nation, Stewart prompted Cruise to talk about the status of a sixth entry in the long-running series. “You got plans to do another one?” Stewart asks, clearly as big a fan of the franchise as many of us.
“We’re starting to work on it now,” Cruise replies, “We’ll probably start shooting it next summer.” In other news, I’m already in line for tickets. Check out the video below for Cruise’s full “Daily Show” interview, the most noteworthy bits are included above but listening to Cruise and Stewart banter back and forth is supremely entertaining.
