Tom Cruise Sees Next Mission: Impossible Stopped, Delayed For How Long?
Tom Cruise’s latest film in the Mission: Impossible franchise just hit theaters, but we may see the follow-up film getting delayed. SAG-AFTRA just announced that it will be going on strike, along with the ongoing WGA workers on strike, and that will prevent actors in the guild (pretty much all working actors) from filming scenes while the strike is going on. Filming for the sequel was due to begin immediately after Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One‘s press tour, but they will need to wait until the strike is over to officially get underway.
Filming for the next Mission: Impossible movie was set to begin directly after the press tour for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, but has been halted until the actors strike ends.
Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two already had a tight turnaround time, with the sequel set to release less than a year from now on June 28, 2024. While director Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise weren’t going to begin filming until the aforementioned world press tour, they still were likely going to get started fairly soon.
Depending on how long the strike lasts, it could be a month or longer before filming can commence.
The Actors Strike
Negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP fell apart on Wednesday night, but WGA workers have already been striking for months now. The actors are joining the picket lines and striking over several key issues that will shape the future of entertainment, such as AI regulation and streaming residuals.
The fact that the main villain in Tom Cruise’s latest Mission: Impossible is an AI known as the “Entity” is quite apropos.
Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two is not the only film being delayed, as tentpoles like Deadpool 3, Gladiator 2, Venom 3, and untitled F1 drama produced by Apple, and the live-action Lilo & Stitch film were all filming and will be halting production as well.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, some film productions were preparing for the strike by frontloading filming scenes with SAG-AFTRA actors, along with other contingency plans. Animated films will also be able to continue work on animation and other aspects of post-production, but films like Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse are likely far enough along that they need SAG-AFTRA actors to start recording lines to hit their release windows.
Unless the strike resolves soon, it seems unlikely that films like Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two will be able to hit their original release windows. A quick resolution seems unlikely, however, as the AMPTP has failed to reach agreeable resolutions with both WGA and SAG-AFTRA.
And there’s no set date for any party to come back to the negotiating table at this point. The additional pressure of the actors not working along with the writers may put additional pressure on the studios represented by the AMPTP to compromise, but that remains to be seen.
Unless the strike resolves soon, it seems unlikely that films like Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two will be able to hit their original release windows.
SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland recently talked about how some of AMPTP’s plans for AI include taking the likeness of background actors and using them in perpetuity without consent or compensation, so it seems like AMPTP’s wants are pretty far away from being something that anyone in the WGA or SAG-AFTRA would agree to.
For now, we’ll have to wait and see how this all pans out. In the meantime, you can see Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, which is now in theaters.
