The sixth Mission: Impossible film will mark a first in the franchise’s near 20-year history. We learned recently that Christopher McQuarrie, who co-wrote and directed the fantastic Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, was in talks to reprise his writing and directing duties on the series’ sixth entry. Now McQuarrie has taken to Twitter to seemingly confirm the news in the same way he revealed he was directing Mission: Impossible 5.

https://twitter.com/chrismcquarrie/status/671368435650179072

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Image via Paramount

This is the first time the Mission: Impossible franchise will be repeating directors, as producer/star Tom Cruise was keen on changing things up behind the camera for each installment, allowing every filmmaker to make the sequel his own. That resulted in the diverse installments we’ve seen thus far, but Cruise has a special relationship with McQuarrie—since Valkyrie, he’s brought McQuarrie on to do script work on most of his films—and so if any Mission: Impossible director were to repeat, it’d be McQuarrie.

The Jack Reacher filmmaker was up front on the Rogue Nation press tour about the fact that he already had plenty of discarded ideas from Rogue Nation that could be used in Mission: Impossible 6, so I’m incredibly curious to see how the duo aim to continue the franchise while keeping it fresh. Each installment thus far has felt wildly different from its predecessor, so McQuarrie faces a tough challenge in trying to not only top what he did in Rogue Nation, but also do something entirely different.

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Image via Paramount

Cruise and McQuarrie are separately cooking up an Edge of Tomorrow sequel with Emily Blunt and director Doug Liman, but that’s still in the nascent stages of development. Cruise may or may not be starring in Universal’s The Mummy reboot, which starts filming early next year, but production for Mission: Impossible 6 is scheduled to get underway around next August—an uncharacteristically tight turn around for the series.

As a big fan of Cruise and McQuarrie, I’m psyched by this news. Here’s hoping Rebecca Ferguson—the standout of Rogue Nation and an actress on the cusp of superstardom—returns for the next installment as well. And Simon Pegg’s chemistry with Cruise has become a highlight of the franchise thus far, so I can’t imagine a Mission: Impossible sequel without him.


What do you think, folks? What do you want to see from Mission: Impossible 6? Sound off in the comments below.

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Image via Paramount Pictures