Earlier this week it was announced that Paramount, in an effort to ensure that the Mission: Impossible franchise would still be viable once the audience found Tom Cruise to be too old or too weird for their liking, were looking for someone younger to cast in Mission: Impossible IV as Tom Cruise’s eventual replacement. Paramount production chief Adam Goodman yesterday officially named Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) as the successor to the MI franchise.
Among the actors that Renner beat out for the role include Tom Hardy (Inception), Chris Pine (Star Trek), and The Hurt Locker costar Anthony Mackie.
While it seems with this news that they are telegraphing Tom Cruise’s character dies in the upcoming MI: IV to hand over the reins of the franchise to Renner sooner rather than later, Cruise is signed to appear through five MI films and is expected to return for all five. Also, Brad Bird (The Incredibles) is making his live action feature film directing debut with MI 4, and I’m not sure that the studio wants to risk making Cruise unhappy on the very expensive set of an unproven director.
One thing is for certain, however, this is already shaping up to be better than that load MI: III.