Mission: Impossible 8 Confirms One Character’s Return (With a Major Promotion)

The first trailer for Mission: Impossible 8 confirms the return of Angela Bassett to the franchise. The Emmy Award winner first appeared in as CIA Director Erika Sloane in 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout, but now appears set to return with a change in her job title. About 50 seconds into the Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning teaser trailer we see Bassett’s Sloane stepping out of Air Force 1 on an airstrip while soldiers salute her. This would imply that Sloane is now President of the United States, which means she will heavily invested in what Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is up to.

While the plot of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning remains under wraps, it’s safe to assume that it will continue to follow the globetrotting adventures of Ethan Hunt, as he and his team attempt to stop a global catastrophe. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning stars the returningTom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Vanessa Kirby, Mariela Garriga, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Charles Parnell and Frederick Schmidt. They are joined by newcomers Holt McCallany, Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Katy O’Brian, and Stephen Oyoung.

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The eighth movie in the Mission: Impossible franchise follows 2023’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Paramount Pictures made the decision to alter Dead Reckoning‘s title on Paramount+, dropping the “Part One” part of the subtitle, meaning Mission: Impossible 8 would have its own distinct title.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning concluded with Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and IMF racing across the globe to keep terrorist Gabriel (Esai Morales) from getting the halves of “the key” that controls a powerful AI “Entity” that will become the ultimate weapon in cyber warfare. Ethan managed to get the key in hand (despite suffering heavy losses), but the retrieval of the Entity will take place in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, as the AI’s source code is trapped on a Russian sub it sank, lost beneath the Arctic ice.

The question is does the “Final Reckoning” portion of the title mean that this is the final installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise. Eight movies is definitely on the high side for a franchise’s output all starring one singular actor. Tom Cruise has the star power to keep putting out Mission: Impossible movies, but after a certain amount of time the “Impossible” part of the name loses its meaning. Cruise isn’t getting any younger, so it may be time for Ethan Hunt to finally settle into retirement.