The first Mission Impossible movie, which involved a cold open killing most of who we thought were the main cast members, set the tone for what fans and critics now consider to be one of the best movie franchises of all time. But even though Tom Cruise‘s risk paid off, the choice didn’t come without a sense of regret. Specifically when it came to killing off Emilio Estevez in the first Mission Impossible.
In an interview with Uproxx, Estevez revealed that Cruise didn’t just regret killing off his action movie character, but also tried to bring him back.
“Tom was like, we were doing a run the year after that and he says, ‘Man, we made such a mistake killing you off,'” he recalled. “He [Cruise] and John Woo were trying to figure out a way to bring me back for part two, but it just didn’t make sense. I thought you could have because with all the masks, right?”
The ‘80s movies star then reflected on how Cruise pitched the role to him in the first place. “The way Tom had explained it, he said, ‘Look, I’d love for you to come and join the cast. The whole opening number where everybody gets wiped out, it’s going to be a lot of well-known people and all of them are going to go uncredited and it’s really going to set up the level of peril for Ethan,'” Estevez explained. “And I said, ‘I’m in. You don’t have to ask me twice, I’m in.’ And then afterwards, obviously, the movie’s a giant hit.”
Estevez was right: the thriller movie was such a hit, there are now eight of them. The Mission Impossible 7 release date is July 14, with the new movie serving as the first of a two-part epic entitled ‘Dead Reckoning.’