When it comes to the modern Mission: Impossible movies, you can forget the big Hollywood trade magazines. Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie is your main source for casting news. And he's put out the latest update, with word that actor Rolf Saxon is aboard the still-filming eighth entry Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 2.
Saxon is a throwback to the original 1996 M:I movie, as he played CIA Analyst William Donloe, the who was supposed to be watching highly classified documents before Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt drops from the ceiling and steals them in one of the most iconic moments of that outing. Donloe's punishment for his failure? Reassignment to a chilly substation in Alaska.
It marks the latest in connective tissue to the first film, since we already know that Henry Czerny is back as Eugene Kittridge, who suspects Hunt is a mole. From the looks of the initial Dead Reckoning Part One trailer, Kittridge will be even more of a problem this time.
And Donloe's fate would appear to play into the plot of the second Dead Reckoning, since McQuarrie also posted a look at Inuit actor Lucy Tulugarjuk dressed warmly against the cold outside what looks like a chilly substation in Alaska.
The plot thickens! And possibly freezes! Part One is due in cinemas on 14 July this year, while we'll have to wait until 28 June 2024 for Part Two.