Six years have passed since Tom Cruise announced that the seventh and eighth films in the Mission: Impossible franchise would be shot back-to-back, and he has been in production on these films for a long time. We saw Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning back in 2024, and now the follow-up, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, has finally made its way out into the world, reaching theatres on May 23rd. (You can read our review at THIS LINK.) To celebrate the film’s release, producer/star Cruise and director/co-writer/producer Christopher McQuarrie went on a world tour that wrapped up in the state of Texas, where they received a welcome from Dallas Cowboys legend Emmitt Smith and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, experienced authentic Texas barbecue, and surprised moviegoers at military, tastemaker, and opening weekend paid screenings. When JoBlo’s own Taylor James Johnson heard that Tom Cruise was going to be appearing at a theater somewhere in San Antonio, he set out to make sure he and Cruise would cross paths – and you can follow his journey in the video embedded above!
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning tells the second half of the story that began in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, with Ethan Hunt out to destroy an AI system called The Entity, which is housed in a sunken Russian stealth submarine. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and Dead Reckoning writer/director Christopher McQuarrie remains at the helm, working from a screenplay he crafted with Erik Jendresen. The official synopsis is very simple: Our lives are the sum of our choices. Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
Cruise is being joined in the cast by Hayley Atwell, reprising her Dead Reckoning role of thief-turned-IMF-recruit Grace; Vanessa Kirby as arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis, a.k.a. the White Widow, a character who was previously seen in both Fallout and Dead Reckoning; Ving Rhames as IMF agent Luther Stickell, who has been part of this franchise since the first Mission: Impossible movie in 1996; Simon Pegg as IMF agent Benji Dunn, who joined the party back in Mission: Impossible III; Henry Czerny as CIA director Eugene Kittridge, who was introduced in Mission: Impossible (1996) and finally made his long-awaited return in Dead Reckoning; Rolf Saxon as William Donloe, a CIA analyst who got in trouble after Ethan Hunt accessed his computer way back in the first Mission: Impossible; and more Dead Reckoning reprisals: Esai Morales as the Entity-serving terrorist Gabriel; Pom Klementieff as Gabriel’s former ally Paris; Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis as US Intelligence agents Briggs and Degas; Mariela Garriga as Marie, a mysterious woman from Ethan and Gabriel’s past; Mark Gatiss and Charles Parnell as the heads of the NSA and NRO;. There are also a handful of new additions to the franchise: Holt McCallany as Secretary of Defense Bernstein; and Nick Offerman as Sydney, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Katy O’Brian, Stephen Oyoung, Tramell Tillman, Janet McTeer, Hannah Waddingham, and Lucy Tulugarjuk are also in the cast.
Have you seen Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning already, or do you plan to catch the film on the big screen sometime during its theatrical run? Let us know by leaving a comment below, but first, have fun watching Taylor search for Tom Cruise in every theater in San Antonio.
