Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning director wanted to bring back Alec Baldwin for opening flashback

Some franchises just can’t help themselves when it comes to bringing characters back from the dead (I’m looking at you Fast & Furious), but for the most part, the dead stay dead on Mission: Impossible. However, that doesn’t mean that characters can’t return in other ways, and Christopher McQuarrie told the Empire Spoiler Podcast (via ComicBook.com) that he was considering bringing back Alec Baldwin for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

Alec Baldwin played CIA director Alan Hunley in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation before becoming IMF Secretary in Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Hunley was killed off in Fallout, but Christopher McQuarrie had a plan to include Alec Baldwin in a Dead Reckoning flashback scene, which would have opened the movie.

“Berlin had been calling our name. There was originally an opening of this movie that began with Tom and Alec Baldwin walking along the Berlin Wall,” McQuarrie explained. “They’re walking along the wall and you slowly realize it’s the Berlin Wall. And it’s Alec Baldwin talking to Ethan about his life as a spy, how he became a spy. And you realize it’s him counseling Ethan. You’re seeing a glimpse into the friendship of these two characters that existed prior to Fallout. And you cut and Tom is standing at his grave, having heard the words of wisdom from Alec, and he’s just looking at a gravestone that says ‘Hunley.’ And that notion of Alec Baldwin being a spirit guide to Ethan in his memory was a very, very early idea to the story, something I was keenly interested in.“

In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, and dark forces from Ethan’s past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than his mission – not even the lives of those he cares about most.

You can check out a review of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One from our own Chris Bumbray right here, and be sure to let us know what you thought of the film as well. It was announced yesterday that the film will be released on Digital on October 10th, followed by a 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD release on October 31st.