Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

No one was quite sure what to expect with the release of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol last week, given that Tom Cruise films have been pretty hit and miss at the box office over the past few years, but much to Paramount’s surprise, the film has become a hit with audiences. Naturally, this means the studio is already pushing for a sequel…

Moviehole reports that Paramount is “extremely happy” with the early returns for the film and think that it could become one of the biggest earners of the holiday season. Should that happen, it would be quite the turnaround for Cruise, personally.

The actor and Paramount severed their relationship a few years back, but fences are apparently being mended as we speak – funny how the thought of hundreds of millions of dollars will do that. Paramount is apparently so high on Cruise again that they’re talking about keeping his Ethan Hunt character in the next film (before release, it was assumed the lead actor mantle was being passed to Jeremy Renner) and moving forward with Top Gun 2.

While it seems highly likely we’ll get a Mission Impossible 5, things are more up in the air with some other potential titles.

Some pundits are positing that a Gremlins 3 is still in the works at Warner Bros. based solely on the fact that the studio has recently renewed the URL “Gremlins3.com”. Could Gizmo and company be returning for more midnight snacks and shenanigans? According to one nameless executive, maybe. Moviehole reports that one of their contacts has “heard things,” but has nothing concrete to report.

Normally, we’d not read too much into a studio buying up a domain name – many film companies do it as a “just in case” measure and to deter Internet squatters. However, Warner Bros. hasn’t done that – there’s a list of titles that we know are being developed (like Bladerunner 2) that haven’t been acquired according to Moviehole.

Equally interesting is that on the same day they renewed the Gremlins 3 address, they also renewed one for a Green Lantern sequel and The Hangover 3. That puts Gremlins 3 in some pretty interesting company since we’re almost assuredly getting both of those other films at some point in the near future.

If Gremlins 3 does come to pass, we suspect that it’ll be a complete reboot of the franchise. CGI technology will (sadly) eliminate the need for puppets and open a whole new world of story possibilities, plus it seems unlikely that a younger generation of filmgoers will be clamoring for the return of Phoebe Cates (which is also sad…).

For now, Gremlins 3 remains a rumor – but we’ll keep you posted as new details emerge. Who knows, maybe we’ll all be getting a Mogwai for Christmas in 2015 or some future date.  

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