Tom Cruise Jokes Next Mission: Impossible Movie Will Be a Musical

The upcoming Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning two-part movie is expected to be Tom Cruise’s final outing as Ethan Hunt, the lead of the Mission: Impossible franchise and a character Cruise has played for decades now. With Part One about to hit theaters and Cruise literally dropping motorcycles of cliffs to make it happen, what’s next for the beloved franchise? Well, a musical, of course!…Well, no, that’s a joke. But very much like “take the movie to space,” a musical is one of things that stars tend to joke about when a franchise has seemingly done everything.

That’s where Cruise, who not only stars in, but also produces, the Mission: Impossible movies, finds himself. After half a dozen of the best-loved action movies of the last 30 years and almost $4 billion generated at the box office, what can you do to keep people surprised?

“It’s all about story. We come up with these things, and I enjoy doing them, and I train for many, many, many years,” Cruise said at the film’s premiere, listing off all the different vehicles and stunt gags he has trained with. “But all of these things — I sing, I dance, I have all of these things that I want to apply to my films.”

When a host interjected, “Is that in Part Two?,” Cruise went along with the gag.

“It’s going to be a musical,” Cruise joked. “You heard it here!”

…Yeah, he’s joking. But don’t try and tell us a musical starring Tom Cruise and Cary Elwes wouldn’t work.

Tickets for Dead Reckoning Part One are now on sale at major theatrical chains, with a little under a month before the movie’s July 12th release date. Check with your local theater or third-party retailers like Fandango for details. At a minimum, Regal has already sent out a text blast this morning to Crown Club members raising awareness of the movie and any deals available at your local cinema.

The plot is still a little ambiguous, since the film’s trailers have centered primarily on the movie’s action and setting its basic stakes, which include a seeming moral conflict between Ethan’s desire to protect the found family of his IMF teammates and Luther’s (Rhames) desire to complete the mission at all costs. Creatives behind the movie have revealed that it will plumb the depths of Ethan’s past, most of which is almost entirely unknown prior to the events of the first movie.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One stars Cruise and returning stars Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Czerny, and Vanessa Kirby. New cast members include Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter) and Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy), Rob Delaney (Deadpool 2), Charles Parnell (Top Gun: Maverick), Indira Varma (Game of Thrones), and Mark Gatiss (Sherlock). 

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is coming to theaters on July 12

h/t Deadline