Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Reveals Surprising Callback to Early Sequel

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning isn’t just going to wrap up the story introduced in 2023’s Dead Reckoning, but it looks like it’s also going to call back to some of its franchise’s greatest hits. The first trailer for The Final Reckoning makes that clear, as it pointedly features multiple shots referencing Ethan Hunt’s (Tom Cruise) famous Langley heist from 1996’s Mission: Impossible. As some keen-eyed fans have noted, the trailer also features the return of the Rabbit’s Foot, the mysterious MacGuffin at the center of the J.J. Abrams-directed Mission: Impossible III.

The Rabbit’s Foot can briefly be seen around the 1:36 mark of the Final Reckoning trailer in a shot that shows Ethan wrapping his gloved hand around the obviously dangerous bioweapon. This shot, notably, looks like it could have been pulled straight out of Mission: Impossible III. However, viewers are never shown Ethan physically retrieving the Rabbit’s Foot in that film.

That means the shot featured in the Final Reckoning trailer is either a deleted visual from Mission: Impossible III or a new one created with a potentially de-aged Cruise. In all likelihood, viewers will have to wait for The Final Reckoning to hit theaters in summer 2025 to find out which of those two possibilities is correct.

What is the Rabbit’s Foot?

In Mission: Impossible III, the Rabbit’s Foot is a biological hazard that Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a criminal arms dealer, sets out to steal in order to put on the black market. Despite its importance to its plot, though, Mission: Impossible III never specifies how much of a threat the Rabbit’s Foot poses to the world or what kind of a biohazard it is. In fact, the film pointedly avoids doing so, with IMF Director Theodore Brassel (Laurence Fishburne) cheekily promising Ethan at the end of the movie that he’ll only tell him what the Rabbit’s Foot really is if Ethan swears to remain an active agent.

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The thriller also never reveals what happens to the Rabbit’s Foot. The biohazard is last shown being carried by Ethan as he and his wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) make their way safely out of China. It’s implied that Ethan delivered the Rabbit’s Foot offscreen directly to the IMF, but it’s never revealed in Mission: Impossible III where it’s kept or whose care it’s left in. 19 years later, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning may finally solve those lingering mysteries.

Why is the Rabbit’s Foot in The Final Reckoning?

Fans likely won’t know the reason for the Rabbit’s Foot’s inclusion in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning until they actually see the sequel. It’s possible the film is only going to reference the biohazard as part of a series of callbacks to some of Ethan’s past victories. That’d make sense, given that The Final Reckoning promises to send him on his most dangerous mission to date. That said, it’s also possible the Rabbit’s Foot will play a more important role in The Final Reckoning‘s plot.

The forthcoming film will, after all, follow Ethan as he tries to finish what he started in Dead Reckoning and shut down the Entity, a rogue Artificial Intelligence with the means to destroy all of human civilization. Taking that into account, it certainly doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that the Entity could try to use the Rabbit’s Foot to unleash some kind of mayhem before Ethan can stop it. Given how dangerous the Rabbit’s Foot is said to be in Mission: Impossible III, it seems like exactly the kind of weapon that might intrigue a nefarious being like the Entity.

Regardless of how it ultimately uses the biohazard, The Final Reckoning has already given itself the chance by simply including the Rabbit’s Foot to answer some of the questions that fans have been asking about it since 2006.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is set to hit theaters on May 23, 2025.