Mission: Impossible 5 Moved Up To July

Christmas is coming early this year. Well, not Christmas exactly – one of the films that had been planned to arrive on December 25 (in the US, December 26 here), Mission: Impossible 5** has just been bumped up five months for a July 31 release across the pond{ =nofollow}.

According to Paramount – as reported by The Hollywood Reporter – Tom Cruise and the team will be going about their impossible missions a little earlier this year, partly thanks to Christopher McQuarrie and his filmmaking cohorts being able to deliver the film in good time.

Another reason for the change is to move the film away from massive competition such as Mission executive producer J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens (set for December 18) and the even more direct challenge of the latest Bond film, Spectre, which launches here on October 23 before heading Stateside on November 6. So M is now a summer release, which means Paramount’s marketing team will have to scramble that little bit quicker to get teasers, trailers and various other promotional items ready to make sure the film-going world at large knows that Ethan Hunt and the gang are making an early return.

So far, very little is known about the film other than it has shot around Vienna and the UK and also spent time in Morocco. Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames are all back, with Alec Baldwin, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris and Simon McBurney among the new recruits for this one. And if one car chase is just Cruise and Pegg moving cars in front of a painted backdrop and going, “brrrmmm…” you know which bit still needed finishing. Or... Ooh! An entire gun battle that just has the participants using their fingers, one interrupted by Edgar Wright walking on set and slapping a copyright claim into McQuarrie's hand...