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.

While everyone associates Bad Robot with J.J. Abrams, he actually has a producing partner that rarely does press and usually stays out of the limelight: Bryan Burk.  If you look over his IMDb profile, you’ll see he’s tremendously involved in all Bad Robot productions and was a key component in both Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness.

With the movie getting ready to premiere around the world, I recently landed an exclusive interview with the busy producer.  During our wide-ranging interview, we talked about making the sequel, the editing process, the secrecy, the title, if we’ll get Star Trek 3 in less than four years, whether a new Star Trek TV show could happen in the near future, and more.  We also talked about other Bad Robot productions like Star Wars, Mission: Impossible 5, Infinitely Polar Bear,  Person of Interest, Revolution, Alfonso Cuaron‘s pilot Believe, Karl Urban‘s pilot Almost Human, and more.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

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.

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.

Though we weren’t exactly lacking in popcorn movies last year, one of the most fun times I had in a movie theater in 2011 was most certainly Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.  Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles and The Iron Giant, made his live-action debut in a big way with the crowd pleasing fourth entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise.  What’s not to love about Tom Cruise playing out a death defying action sequence thousands of feet in the sky on a giant IMAX screen?  Given that a different director has helmed each film in the franchise, most weren’t exactly expecting Bird to return for the next installment.  The director has now, unsurprisingly, confirmed that he’s unlikely to helm Mission: Impossible 5, but he also revealed that they changed the film’s ending during the middle of production.

Hit the jump to see what he had to say, but beware of obvious spoilers for the ending of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

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.