# Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is an upcoming American action spy film directed by Christopher McQuarrie from a screenplay he co-wrote with Erik Jendresen. The direct sequel to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), it is the eighth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Angela Bassett, and Rolf Saxon reprise their roles from the previous films.
In January 2019, Cruise announced that the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible films would be shot back-to-back with McQuarrie writing and directing both films. Plans for the film later changed in February 2021. Returning and new cast members were announced soon after, and Lorne Balfe, who composed the scores for two previous films in the series, returned to score the film. Filming began in March 2022 in the United Kingdom, with other filming locations including Malta, South Africa and Norway. Production was halted in July 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, and resumed in March 2024 before concluding by November 2024. The film, originally titled Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two, dropped its subtitle in October 2023, and the new subtitle was announced in November 2024. With an estimated budget of $400 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made.
The Final Reckoning is scheduled to be released in the United States on May 23, 2025, by Paramount Pictures.

## Cast

* Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt: An IMF agent and leader of a team of operatives.
* Hayley Atwell as Grace: A former thief turned IMF agent and Ethan's ally.
* Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell: An IMF computer technician, Ethan's best friend and a member of his team.
* Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn: An IMF technical field agent and a member of Ethan's team and close friend.
* Vanessa Kirby as Alanna Mitsopolis: A black market arms dealer also known as the White Widow and daughter of "Max", a deceased former arms dealer from the first film.
* Esai Morales as Gabriel: An assassin with ties to Ethan's past before the IMF, who acts as the Entity's liaison.
* Pom Klementieff as Paris: A French assassin who was betrayed by Gabriel and became Ethan's ally after being spared by the latter.
* Mariela Garriga as Marie: A woman from Ethan and Gabriel's past.
* Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge: The former director of the IMF in the first film who became the director of the CIA in Dead Reckoning.
* Holt McCallany as Bernstein: The Secretary of Defense.
* Janet McTeer
* Nick Offerman as Sydney: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
* Hannah Waddingham
* Angela Bassett as Erika Sloane: The former CIA director, now President of the United States. Bassett returns from Fallout.
* Shea Whigham as Jasper Briggs: A US Intelligence agent assigned to track down Ethan and his team.
* Greg Tarzan Davis as Degas: A US Intelligence agent and Briggs' partner who was assigned to track down Ethan and his team. He joins Ethan's team in this film.
* Charles Parnell: The head of the NRO.
* Frederick Schmidt as Zola Mitsopolis, Alanna's brother.
* Rolf Saxon as William Donloe, a CIA analyst who was last seen in the first film being transferred to Alaska.
* Tommie Earl Jenkins as Colonel Burdick
Mark Gatiss and Indira Varma return as the respective heads of the NSA and DIA from Dead Reckoning Part One while Lucy Tulugarjuk, Katy O'Brian, Tramell Tillman, and Stephen Oyoung have been cast in undisclosed roles.

## Production
### Development

On January 14, 2019, Tom Cruise announced that the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible films would be shot back-to-back with Christopher McQuarrie writing and directing both films for July 23, 2021 and August 5, 2022, releases. However, in February 2021, Deadline Hollywood revealed that Paramount had decided to no longer move forward with that plan.

### Casting

In September 2019, Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff joined the cast of the eighth installment. In December, Simon Pegg confirmed his return for the film, while Shea Whigham was also cast. Nicholas Hoult joined the cast by January 2020, along with Henry Czerny, who will reprise his role as Eugene Kittridge for the first time since the 1996 film. Vanessa Kirby also announced she was returning for both films. However, due to scheduling conflicts, Hoult was replaced by Esai Morales for both films. In July 2022, it was reported that Holt McCallany had joined the cast. In August, it was revealed Nick Offerman and Janet McTeer were also added to the cast. In March 2023, McQuarrie announced Hannah Waddingham, Lucy Tulugarjuk and Rolf Saxon's addition to the cast, the latter of whom reprises his role from the first film. In March 2024, Katy O'Brian joined the cast in an undisclosed role. In April 2024, Tramell Tillman was cast in an undisclosed role. In November 2024, it was revealed that Angela Bassett would reprise her role as CIA Director Erika Sloane.

### Filming

In February 2021, Deadline Hollywood reported that the film would no longer be filmed back-to-back with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. By November, McQuarrie was in the process of rewriting the film. On March 23, 2022, The Hollywood Reporter reported the beginning of principal photography of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two. Filming took place in the UK at Longcross Studios and the Lake District. Other locations included Malta, South Africa, and Norway. In December 2022, filming was finished in the UK. The crew then moved to Apulia in Italy to continue filming aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush. During the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, production was thought to have been put on hold according to an interview with McQuarrie in the June 2023 issue of the Empire magazine. However, this was later revealed to have been a misinterpretation of McQuarrie's statement, and continued production was only waiting for the promotion of Part One to complete. Filming was officially suspended in July due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. The film returned to production in March 2024, though in May, it encountered a delay due to a submarine malfunction. During filming in England, Cruise and Morales were observed performing stunts from an airborne biplane, with Cruise holding onto the wings of the open cockpit aircraft as it flew upside down, while the pilot wore a greenscreen suit so as to be digitally removed from the final shot. In July 2024, Simon Pegg revealed filming had concluded for his part, though the cast and crew were maintaining radio silence. By November 2024, production had concluded and the film was in post-production. The Hollywood Reporter reported that the budget had neared $400 million due to the production delays.

### Post-production

Industrial Light & Magic returns from the seventh film to produce the visual effects, with Clear Angle Studios and Halon Entertainment as the additional vendors for lidar, cyber scanning and previsualization. In October 2023, Dead Reckoning Part Two was removed as the film's subtitle, and the new subtitle was confirmed as The Final Reckoning in November 2024.

## Music

Lorne Balfe was announced to be composing the score for the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible films in May 2020, after previously doing so for Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018).

## Release

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is scheduled to be released on May 23, 2025. It was previously set for release on August 5, 2022, but was delayed to November 4, 2022, July 7, 2023, June 28, 2024, and then to the current date as a result of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, taking the original release date of The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.

## Future

In June 2023, McQuarrie told Fandango that Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning would not necessarily end the series, and they were developing ideas for future installments. In July 2023, during promotion for Dead Reckoning, Cruise expressed interest in continuing to make further films in the series as Ethan Hunt, despite both films having initially been billed as a send-off to the character, citing Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones well until his late 70s. On November 12, 2024, insider Jeff Sneider reported that Cruise was looking at his Top Gun: Maverick co-star Glen Powell to replace him as the new lead. Powell denied this rumor on The Pat McAfee Show while Pat McAfee was congratulating him by phone.