The Mission: Impossible franchise just got a kick-ass new femme fatale. Guardians of the Galaxy star Pom Klementieff has joined the cast of Mission: Impossible 7 (and possibly 8, depending on how much you want to read into a hashtag) alongside returning star Tom Cruise. McQuarrie announced the casting with a tweet, saying ".@PomKlementieff. How do you spell femme fatale? #MI78", to which Klementieff replied, "Mischief: accepted."
The announcement makes Klementieff the first cast member and first character hints officially announced to join Cruise's Ethan Hunt in the upcoming back-to-back sequels. Previous reports suggested that McQuarrie was considering bringing back Henry Cavill and Adam Baldwin for the films, though that was never confirmed. With release dates set for 2021 and 2022, we can probably expect to hear a whole lot more casting news in the near future as production nears -- and hopefully, that includes a whole heap of returning cast members, especially the great Rebecca Ferguson, because the ensembles of Mission: Impossible have always lowkey been one of the highlights.
If you were following along during pre-production and production on Mission: Impossible -- Fallout, you probably remember that McQuarrie was very active and engaged on social media throughout the process, keeping fans updated with behind-the-scenes pictures from the set and announcing cast members and locations along the way. The filmmaker generally keeps pretty active online, including a lot of practical and hard-earned screenwriting advice, but it's always particularly thrilling to get an inside look at the making of arguably the best action franchise in Hollywood.
Other than Klementieff's addition, the details of the next M:I movies remain very much a mystery. McQuarrie is the only filmmaker in the franchise's 30+ history to return for a sequel, and by the time he wraps 7 and 8, there will be as many McQuarrie films in the franchise as there were films by other directors. But he's also known for shaking it up. After Rogue Nation, McQuarrie made an effort to make Fallout feel like it was made by another filmmaker, hiring new production heads and approaching the film with a different style. It will be interesting to see if he takes the same approach with 7 and 8, or if he's taking a two-part approach to the back-to-back films. Either way, he's coming off the highest-grossing film in the franchise with Fallout, which took home $791 million worldwide.
Mission: Impossible 7 is set for July 23, 2021, with Mission: Impossible 8 to follow on Aug. 5, 2022.