Movie marketeers are always scouring the ideas pile for new ways to get their films’ promotional messages in front of potential moviegoers. Paramount’s gurus are going one step further and plonking part of their film in front of an actual audience. If you’re in the UK or US and planning to catch Terminator Genisys at your local IMAX, congratulations. You’ll get the first five minutes of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation into the bargain.
While this deal - buy one T-800, get Tom Cruise clinging to a supersonic motorbike totally free – looks like a calculated move to drive Terminator ticket sales, it is a chance for cinemagoers to catch an early glimpse of the fifth IMF-er. The Christopher McQuarrie-overseen action sequences, judging by the first trailers, are more daffy and deranged even than those in previous instalments. And, lest we forget, they were fairly deranged.
For those not in the know, Jack Reacher and Way Of The Gun alum McQuarrie is marshalling the Mission madness his time around, as our heroes - Simon Pegg's Benji, Jeremy Renner's William Brandt, Ving Rhames' Luther Stickell and newcomer Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) - are up against something called The Syndicate, a rogue nation organisation that is trained and equipped much like the IMF, but intends to destroy them. And then there's our own government, with Alec Baldwin's official looking to shut down Cruise's Ethan Hunt and his team for good.
**Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation **hits UK cinemas on July 30, four weeks after Terminator Genisys makes its bow.