MOVIE NEWS – Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning was marketed as the ultimate entry in Tom Cruise’s legendary action series, putting Ethan Hunt’s fate in the balance for the first time in franchise history. So why did Christopher McQuarrie decide not to kill off the leading man, unlike what happened to Daniel Craig’s Bond? The director has now revealed the real reason behind his decision.

“Everything is on the table. There was a moment in the editing of the final sequence of the movie where Ethan goes spinning into that cloud bank where I thought, ‘If you cut to his grave right now, you’d feel the sacrifice was sufficient. Wow, that’s very, very effective.’” – shared Christopher McQuarrie.

However, he ultimately decided Hunt’s death wasn’t what the film needed, nor did it serve the story’s climax. “The idea of a conclusion of a story being the death of that character… they are not one and the same. When you fully tie off the story, the story ceases to be. And that’s not life. Stories go on, whether or not the movies do.”

Not long ago, Bond fans were left in shock as No Time to Die ended with the unprecedented death of James Bond—no matter how many actors have played him, it had never happened before. McQuarrie, however, clearly didn’t want to remove another action hero from the board so soon.

Could Ethan Hunt Return for Another Impossible Mission?

There are no guarantees in Hollywood, so Tom Cruise’s run as Ethan Hunt might not be over after all. The ending of the film doesn’t close the door on either the franchise or Cruise’s role—in fact, it might even make a sequel more likely.

Cruise hasn’t definitively said whether he’ll be back, but he has hinted: “We can do better.” As one of those actors who never stops, if other opportunities dry up, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine Cruise coming back for another impossible mission.

There is, however, the matter of the franchise’s massive budgets compared to its more modest box office returns. With the last two Mission: Impossible films costing astronomical sums and not bringing in the expected profits, Cruise’s real “impossible mission” might soon be convincing the studio to greenlight another entry in the franchise that began so quietly back in 1996.

Source: MovieWeb, Empire Magazine