McQuarrie, you had my curiosity… but now you have my attention.
Director Christopher McQuarrie has just added Henry Czerny to the cast of the upcoming back-to-back Mission: Impossible sequels. He announced the news on Twitter last Saturday:
There is no escaping the past…#MI7MI8 pic.twitter.com/FwZCsAlnqE
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) February 1, 2020
What makes this bit of casting so important is that Czerny has already appeared in the franchise before. In the original Mission: Impossible, agent Ethan Hunt was framed as a mole and pursued by IMF director Eugene Kittridge (Czerny). We never saw Kittridge again, and Mission: Impossible fell into a habit of having a new IMF director every film. How Kittridge factors into the plot is unknown.
However, this raises the question if we should expect to see more familiar faces from the past installments? Fans have been wanting to see the return of Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton), Zhen Lei (Maggie Q), and Jane Carter (Paula Patton) ever since their first appearances within the series. Until Fallout broke the franchise mold, no female lead was ever brought back for another film (so you go, Rebecca Ferguson, you go).
Confirmed returning faces include Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, and Simon Pegg. Some new faces include Pom Klementieff, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham, and Nicholas Hoult. My ears are still waiting to hear that Jeremy Renner will be returning.
I can’t wait to see how Czerny factors into the upcoming sequels and how Cruise and McQuarrie top the franchise high of Fallout.
Mission: Impossible 7 hits theaters July 23, 2021. Mission: Impossible 8 follows a year later on August 5, 2022.
Are you surprised Henry Czerny is returning as Kittridge? Which former M:I actors do you want to see return for the upcoming sequels?
