Mission: Impossible 6 will explore a “very different” Ethan Hunt

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

After a few stumbling blocks on the road to the latest MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE sequel, production is finally set to kick off in April and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie recently spoke with Empire to tease what MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 6 has in store. Unlike the fantastic opening sequence of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION which saw Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) clutching to the side of a quickly ascending cargo-plane, McQuarrie says that M:I:6 won't begin with an action scene. "It starts in a very unconventional way," explained McQuarrie. "That was the hardest pitch of this movie."

Christopher McQuarrie promised that the film will present us with a "very different" Ethan Hunt while teasing that it will also explore his character in a deeper way than any of the previous movies did.

I’ve seen five of these movies and I don’t know who Ethan Hunt is. One movie sort of dealt with his personal life; the other movies are about people speculating what’s really going on in Ethan’s head. I want to know who Ethan is in this movie, I want an emotional journey for this character, and Tom really embraced it. I don’t want to string together a bunch of action scenes, I want to actually deal with character’. So I put Ethan in a bunch of complicated moral quandaries, and I’m trying to find ways to connect them – and then, ironically, the way to connect them was through giant action scenes.

Those iconic MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE action scenes will obviously still be present, but McQuarrie isn't yet sure whether he has something which will top ROGUE NATION's plane stunt. "I may have found something today. I came to Tom with a picture of something and Tom looked at it and said, ‘That’s awesome! I want to fall off of that!’ It’s like, OK, I can see it on a poster, and I can see Tom falling off of it." Cruise will be back of course, as will Rebecca Ferguson, and Christopher McQuarrie hinted that a few old faces will be returning as well, "including people you would not expect to be back." Which past MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE characters would you like to see return for M:I:6?

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 6 is set for a July 27, 2018 release.