The wheels on Mission: Impossible 4 have been spinning at top speed over the past 24 hours. Yesterday Jeremy Renner signed on to co-star alongside Tom Cruise, and today Deadline tells us that Lauren Graham and Paula Patton are testing for the role of a young female operative in the sequel. However, further news from Variety indicates that the fourth installment may be shaping up to be more of a reboot.
They claim Paramount wants to switch up the formula and forego mentioning Mission: Impossible in the title, and instead go with something more standalone, a la The Dark Knight. Furthermore, despite the fact that we’ve been hearing about Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames returning – as well as the “female operative” story on Deadline today -- Variety says the film will focus solely on Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner’s characters, and not an entire team of agents. Does that mean they’ll be killing a bunch of characters off in the opening scene, like they did the first time around?
Confused? So am I. Regardless, it seems as though director Brad Bird and Paramount want to inject some new blood into this franchise by changing it up significantly and rebooting it (in a way) so that Jeremy Renner could potentially take over in additional sequels, even though the studio claims Cruise could show up as well.
For this week’s Friday Conversation, we’re interested in knowing whether you think it’s a good idea to reboot, or if you’d rather see a straight continuation with Tom Cruise and a team of agents taking on some daring (and difficult) mission? Let us know in the comments below …
