In a rather unexpected development, director Guy Ritchie’s adaptation of the popular TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. has lost its leading man.  Tom Cruise was originally set to star in the Warner Bros. spy pic, which is being planned as a potential franchise-starter, but with a fall production start-date looming Cruise has now vacated the starring role in order to focus his efforts on getting Mission: Impossible 5 off the ground. The film had recently started filling out its cast with Armie Hammer signing on to co-star and Alicia Vikander (Anna Karenina) entering talks to play the film’s female lead, but Ritchie must now start searching to fill his leading role .  Hit the jump for more on the future of both U.N.C.L.E. and Mission: Impossible 5.

Drew Pearce’s latest screenwriting effort, Iron Man 3, was a little box office darling you may have heard of.  Though Pearce co-wrote the Marvel movie with director Shane Black, it looks like Pearce alone will get the first crack at Paramount’s new Mission: Impossible film.  It was recently reported that franchise star Tom Cruise is officially attached to produce and star in Mission: Impossible 5.  Production on the film is is expected to start in the fall after Cruise wraps filming on Warner Bros.’ The Man From U.N.C.L.E.  Plot details are being kept quiet, per THR, and the search for a director is currently underway.  Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher) is reportedly in talks, but recently signed on to write and direct a remake of Ice Station Zebra.

It’s going to be incredibly tough to top director Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, but it appears that Tom Cruise is officially up for the challenge.  Cruise has now signed a deal to star in and produce Mission: Impossible 5 for Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions.  There’s no official word on who will be writing and/or directing the next installment of the franchise, but Cruise’s Jack Reacher writer/director Christopher McQuarrie is supposedly in line to take the gig.  Hit the jump for more, including a refresher on Cruise’s upcoming schedule.

It was the only game in town, so Oblivion’s first place finish this weekend didn’t come as a shock. Universal’s sci-fi release had a solid debut – earning an estimated $38.1 million from 3,783 locations, or just under what G.I. Joe: Retaliation managed three weeks back. Oblivion also topped its initial domestic projection of $35 million, though the real strength of the Tom Cruise vehicle is overseas.

If you’re a toy collector, you’ve likely had a great past few days.  That’s because every February at Toy Fair in NYC, all the toy manufactures  show off tons of upcoming toys and many are being revealed for the first time.  Over the past 24 hours we’ve posted a ton of them broken down by manufacturer, and we’re not close to being done.  However, due to how many we’ve yet to post, I’m going to take a group approach to this article.

As you can see after the jump, we’ve got over 100 pictures from the convention floor and you can check out some of the new toys for Iron Man (and Iron Man 3), The Walking Dead, Batman, The Dark Knight, Star Wars, DC Justice, Real Steel, Marvel Selects, Resident Evil, Arkham City, Star Trek, Superman, Thor, Wonder Woman, Tom Cruise from Mission Impossible, and much more.

A question that has stunted many philosophers and scholars throughout the ages—who will direct Star Wars 7?—was finally answered earlier this week with the news that J.J. Abrams will be taking the helm of the new Star Wars film.  The revelation was met with an even amount of joy, outrage, and confusion by the fan community, as one man will now be crossing the streams of Star Wars and Star Trek.

With anticipation for Abrams’ sequel Star Trek Into Darkness at a fever pitch (and the film poised to do big, big box office), Paramount is likely eager to get a third Star Trek film into production sooner rather than later.  The studio’s vice chairman has now spoken up to ease fans’ concern over Abrams’ other franchises, clarifying the filmmaker’s role in Star Trek 3 and Mission: Impossible 5 going forward.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

Today, at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, J.J. Abrams was in attendance to talk about what fans can expect when the NBC drama series Revolution returns with new episodes on March 25^th.  As usual, the ever busy executive producer was giving of his time and took a few moments to chat about some of his upcoming and current projects.  Abrams gave updates about the Alfonso Cuarón supernatural drama series for NBC, the futuristic robot cop series that Joel Wyman is developing, that he has not yet seen the Fringe finale but that the script was incredibly emotional, how far along the next Mission: Impossible film is, if there’s anything he’s written in the past that he’d still love to be able to get into production, how excited he is for people to see Star Trek Into Darkness, and how difficult it is to maintain the mystery and secrecy for his projects.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

Christopher McQuarrie brings us a violent and exciting film with a great lead character in Jack Reacher.  Tom Cruise plays the title character based on the series of novels by Lee Child, an ex-army cop who has gone off the grid and resurfaces to help solve a quintuple murder.  He enlists the help of lawyer Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike) who has decided to defend the prisoner, despite the overwhelming objection of her father, the D.A. (Richard Jenkins) and police detective Emerson (David Oyelowo).  For more on the film, here’s six clips, over twenty images, positive early reviews, and all our previous coverage.

At the recent press day in New York, I had the chance to speak to McQuarrie about the book he based the screenplay on, how Cruise came to play Jack Reacher, what it was like to work with Werner Herzog, deleted scenes, the status of Mission Impossible 5, and more.  Hit the jump to watch.

Fresh off the smashing success of last year’s Brad Bird-helmed Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, it appears that Paramount and Tom Cruise are eager to get things moving on the fifth entry in the franchise.  The template of the series has always been that a new director steps in each time and puts a new spin on the espionage-centered conceit, and it looks as though the director of the next entry will indeed be someone new to the franchise: Christopher McQuarrie.  Hit the jump for more.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was the shot in the arm the franchise needed, and while it’s unlikely that Brad Bird will return to direct, star and producer Tom Cruise is obviously looking ahead to the next installment.  There are no plot details, but Cruise tells Total Film that he’s always looking out for what could be a good set piece.  Says Cruise, “We’re already working on different images. Talking conceptually. I love travelling around promoting different movies because I’m always looking at different places, and I always walk around to see the city. I look at architecture, subways… coming up with different sequences.”

It’s going to be difficult to top the Burj Khalifa, but hopefully Cruise and Co. will come up with something equally spectacular.  More importantly, I hope he’ll maintain the new direction of the franchise, which is to have it as team movie backed up by Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, and Simon Pegg.  Cruise will next be seen in the action-thriller Jack Reacher, which opens December 21st.

Word of a sequel to Tony Scott’s Top Gun started bubbling up a few years ago.  At the time, most believed Tom Cruise would only be returning for a small role and that the film would center on a new young group of pilots.  Movement on the sequel began to pick up in the ensuing months, and as recently as February we learned that Peter Craig (The Town) was working on a script for the sequel that would feature Cruise in a starring role and would see Scott return as director.

Paramount President Adam Goodman recently sat down for an extended conversation with THR and he provided updates on a slew of upcoming projects including Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, World War Z, One Shot, another entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise, and the aforementioned Top Gun sequel.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

Tom Cruise is a movie star, but after his public embarrassments in 2005, whether audiences could accept him in any role was questioned. And at this point, he probably can’t create a character who isn’t a variation on Tom Cruise, movie star, which may be why the Mission: Impossible franchise is perfect for him. After four films, what can you say about Ethan Hunt other than he’s an effective problem-solver? Ultimately, when you have a director engaged with the material, you get a good film, otherwise it’s just wheel spinning by craftsmen. Brad Bird had a lot to prove with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and it shows, he delivered a home run. Cruise is supported by Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, and Paula Patton in his battle to stop a terrorist (Michael Nyqvist). And our review of the Best-Buy exclusive Blu-ray follows after the jump.

I’m writing to you this afternoon in the late stages of a full-on nostalgia buzz. The reason? Last night, I had the pleasure of taking in a performance of the Beauty and the Beast musical at St. Louis’ beautiful The Fabulous Fox theatre. Thanks to Belle’s “Little Town”, “Something There”, and the Academy Award-winning title track, I’m still giddy and in complete tune with my five-year old self nearly 24 hours after the fact. Now, if I could just get my hands on that old Proton Pack I used to lug around at all times, my return trip to the ’90s would be complete…

…In this week’s “Top 5″ you’ll find a collection of items from The Dark Knight Rises, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo interviews with David Fincher, Rooney Mara, and Daniel Craig, tidbits of news from J.J. Abrams‘ Star Trek sequel, director Brad Bird talking about Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The Incredibles sequel and more, and a recap of what has been yet another crazy week in trailers (Hint: there’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Prometheus, and Wrath of the Titans). Hit the jump for a brief recap and link to each.

Let’s face it: the holidays are here and most people’s brains are already on vacation. Since it’s just too hard to come up with an original movie idea right now, a lot of talk has turned to potential sequels. Some franchises, like Gremlins and Mission: Impossible already have more than one movie in the books while others, such as Colombiana and Pineapple Express are open to sequels just because they can be. So we’ve ransacked the internets to find some updates on sequels you’ve been dying to see and others you never dreamed of being produced. Hit the jump to check them out.

Currently in IMAX, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol opens nationwide on December 21^st. The non-stop action flick follows Impossible Missions Force (IMF) operative Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), who is blamed for the terrorist bombing of the Kremlin and disavowed, along with the rest of the agency, when the President initiates “Ghost Protocol.” Left with only a team of fellow IMF fugitives – including William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Jane Carter (Paula Patton) – whose personal motives are unclear, Hunt must find a way to clear the agency’s name and prevent another attack.

During our exclusive chat, director Brad Bird (The Incredibles) talked about the biggest challenges in transitioning from animation to live-action, what he wanted to bring to the popular franchise to make this installment his own, working with a star who insists on doing all of his own stunts, meticulously planning out the IMAX sequences, re-shoots and test screenings, and how he was all for showing the prologue for The Dark Knight Rises ahead of IMAX showings of the film. He also talked about a possible sequel for The Incredibles and how, if he ever came up with a story that is at least as good as the one he already did, that he’d be happy to return to that world. Watch the video or read the transcript after the jump: