It’s been a long wait, but we are now finally in the final stretch before the release of the next Mission: Impossible film. It will be Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, the first of a two-part finale to the long-running spy series starring Tom Cruise.

Speaking to Empire Magazine, writer-director Christopher McQuarrie explained the meaning behind the title of the film:

“There are many things emerging from Ethan’s past. ‘Dead reckoning’ is a navigational term. It means you’re picking a course based solely on your last known position and that becomes quite the metaphor not only for Ethan, but several characters.”

He then added that their main goal when they set out to make this film was to make every movie that came before in the franchise feel small in comparison:

“The first thing we knew was that if it’s gonna be a big two-part adventure, it’s got to be epic. It’s going to have to be the installment that swallows the rest of the franchise whole. There’s just not another way to do it.”

Ethan Hunt will be back in theaters next July, and he’s not coming alone. Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames are returning from the last few installments, with Vanessa Kirby returning from Mission: Impossible Fallout and Henry Czerny coming back from the original Mission: Impossible (1996) as Eugene Kittridge, likely the main antagonist of the film. New additions include Pom Klementieff, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham, Rob Delaney, Cary Elwes, Indira Varma, Esai Morales, and Mark Gatiss.

Dead Reckoning Part Two is either about to wrap principal photography, or recently entered post-production. Filming had to be paused back in September after a flock of sheep invaded the set, but things went back to normal pretty quickly.

Part One is set to be released in theaters on July 14, 2023. Part Two will come out on June 28, 2024. Check out the teaser trailer for Part One, which came out earlier this year, ahead of the release of Top Gun: Maverick:

Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.