Tom Cruise’s career as Ethan Hunt might have just come to an end in the eighth and final Mission: Impossible movie, The Final Reckoning, but there’s another brilliant franchise he could join now that his schedule has cleared up. Cruise is one of the most notable and successful actors in history, having appeared in projects including Top Gun, A Few Good Men, Edge of Tomorrow, Magnolia, and many more. His longest-running role, however, has been that of Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt, but The Final Reckoning is just that โ his final appearance as the skilled super-spy.
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While Tom Cruise will no longer be appearing in the billion-dollar franchise ($4.63 billion to be exact); however, his new comments about a very different project could tease his jump to a different billion-dollar franchise.
“You reinvented the genre. It was fantastic, perfect,” Cruise said while in conversation with Godzilla Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki (via YouTube), while Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning director Christopher McQuarrie added that Godzilla Minus One was “very beautiful, very human.” Cruise’s love for Godzilla Minus One means there’s one clear franchise he’d be perfect for.
Set in post-war Japan, 2023’s Godzilla Minus One follows former kamikaze pilot Kลichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder due to an altercation with the giant monster known as “Godzilla,” only to battle Godzilla again two years later. Godzilla Minus One received critical acclaim and became the most successful Godzilla movie in Japan, even going so far as to win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, despite being made on a shoestring budget. The Godzilla franchise has grossed over $2.5 billion, including both Japanese and American box office receipts, which makes it a perfect fit for Tom Cruise.
Currently, there are two major Godzilla movies in development. Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, a sequel to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and the latest instalment in the Monsterverse franchise, is scheduled for release in 2027, while Yamazaki is also developing a sequel to Godzilla Minus One. As one of the world’s most iconic and bankable action stars, it would be fantastic to see Tom Cruise debut in a Godzilla movie, and given his admiration for Yamazaki and Minus One, it would make sense for Cruise to appear in the higher-budget sequel that could continue to “reinvent the genre.”
While the American Monsterverse franchise becomes more and more outlandish, Godzilla Minus One’s sequel could be given more legitimacy and substance by including Tom Cruise. With Cruise’s involvement under the talented direction of Yamazaki, Minus One’s sequel could become the highest-grossing Japanese Godzilla movie yet, perhaps shifting attention back to Godzilla’s origin rather than giving so much focus to the American interpretations. Of course, it would be fantastic to see Cruise appear in sequels to Supernova, too, and he could start to bring more gravitas and humanity to the monster movie franchise.
Do you want to see Tom Cruise appear in a Godzilla movie after Mission: Impossible’s ending? Let us know in the comments!
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Image courtesy of DC Studios
