Few people have had their massive blockbuster movies more affected by the pandemic than Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie. Top Gun 2 ended up having a massive delay between filming and release, and Mission Impossible 7 was just about to start filming in Venice in February 2020, when the world shut down. It has had its release delayed by two years, but will finally be out in July 2023.
Venice was one of the first places in Europe to be affected by COVID, and that was a few weeks before the pandemic really reached the US on a significant scale. As McQuarrie tells Entertainment Weekly “we were at ground zero for the pandemic.” McQuarrie has been working on the three action movies (Top Gun 2, as well as Mission Impossible 7 and 8) continuously since May 2018.
McQuarrie says; “This has been the most unbelievable adventure and the most unbelievable continuum between, in some state or another, working on Top Gun 2, Mission 7, and Mission 8, all simultaneously,” he says. “Top Gun 2 is now behind us, and we’re in a place where Mission 7 is almost out in theatres, and it’s so surreal to think that, in July, I will be working [on] one movie at a time. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself!”
McQuarrie was asked if there was ever a time when he thought Mission Impossible 7 wouldn’t be able to reach the finish line; “When you’re making a movie with Tom, that’s not really a factor. And on these movies, we like to say, ‘disaster is an opportunity to excel.’ We lean into the chaos. We don’t invite it, but we accept it as part of the process.” It sounds like more of an adventure movie on-set than on-screen.
The delays have had knock-on effects to the cast of the two-part finale to the long-running Mission Impossible saga. Nicholas Hoult was cast as a baddy, but then had to drop out due to filming commitments on The Great. And new cast-member Hayley Atwell was on set for months before uttering a line of dialogue, according to McQuarrie; “she might have been on this movie for well over 100 days before she had her first dialogue scene, owing to the chaotic nature of the production.”
Let’s hope that Mission Impossible is chaotic in a good way. In the meantime, check out our guide to the best spy movies.