Why is Jeremy Renner NOT in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning?

The Mission: Impossible franchise began as a revolving door. Only two actors have appeared in every film, those being leading man Tom Cruise and supporting star Ving Rhames. It wasn’t until 2006’s Mission: Impossible 3 that fans were introduced to Simon Pegg’s Benji, Ethan Hunt’s latest right hand man that ended up being the one to stay. The next installment brought in then-blossoming top star Jeremy Renner to play William Brandt, a character that was all but Ethan’s equal when it came to many aspects of the Impossible Missions Force. Even though Ethan proved himself to still be the franchise’s sole leading man, William had a comfortable spot as second in command.

Introduced in 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, William Brandt is the Chief Analyst to the Secretary of the IMF. It’s revealed later in that film that William is a former field agent himself, like Ethan, but he gave up that position after his team seemingly failed a mission in Croatia. That mission in question was to protect Ethan and his wife Julia, and William believed that he made a choice that led to Julia’s death. After Ethan revealed Julia is still quietly alive, William regained his confidence and resumed his position as a field agent.

Renner was back in the role for 2015’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, becoming just the fourth “regular” within the franchise (alongside Cruise, Pegg, and Rhames). That said, Renner was nowhere to be seen come 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout and is evidently absent from the latest installment, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.

When it came to his absence from Fallout, director Christopher McQuarrie revealed that the production schedule conflicted with Renner’s commitments within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“It was just an unfortunate case of bad timing,” McQuarrie said in 2018. “At the time, when the movie started, we didn’t really have a screenplay, so it was very difficult for us to say who would be in the movie for how long and on what days, and he had a commitment to Marvel. There was just simply no predicting. If we had a finished script, we would have been able to say, ‘Yes, this will work and we can let you go for this time.’ But there was just no predicting what those roles were going to turn out to.”

Once upon a time, Renner was envisioned as Cruise’s successor in the franchise. Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation cinematographer Robert Elswit revealed in 2019 that Cruise’s Ethan was originally going to become the IMF Secretary at the end of the fourth installment, with Renner’s William taking center stage in the field. Despite these initial plans, Paramount Pictures ultimately kept Cruise as the leading man throughout Ghost Protocol and the film’s franchise-record box office return gave the studio the confidence to keep rolling with the original star.

While there was no word on why Renner missed Dead Reckoning Part 1, it was likely due to another scheduling conflict. Renner filmed Hawkeye while Dead Reckoning was rolling cameras on its rescheduled shoot, as the seventh installment was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even though it’s been over one decade since he debuted in the franchise, Renner’s Mission: Impossible contract does have at least one more movie on it. The action star revealed in 2014 that he “signed on to do three Mission: Impossible movies with Tom” when he first inked his M:I deal in 2010. This leaves a Dead Reckoning Part 2 appearance on the table, although it will likely come down to scheduling once again.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning hits theaters on Wednesday, July 12th.