Christopher McQuarrie Promises Another String Of Action Scenes Plus Moral Quandaries In 'Mission: Impossible 6'

Even in its earliest days, no one was showing up to watch “Mission: Impossible” for the story, and with each successive entry in the franchise, the setpieces have been the star of the show. While you’d probably have to think a few moments about the plot of “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation,” you probably remember the opening scene with Tom Cruise hanging off the plane, or the opera house sequence, or the motorcycle chase, or the underwater scene. However, for “Mission: Impossible 6,” screenwriter and director Christopher McQuarrie is aiming to create a story with some substance. But don’t worry, you’ll still get what you paid for.

“It starts in a very unconventional way. It does not start with action. That was the hardest pitch of this movie,” McQuarrie teased to Empire.

“I’ve seen five of these movies and I don’t know who Ethan Hunt is. One movie sort of dealt with his personal life; the other movies are about people speculating what’s really going on in Ethan’s head. I want to know who Ethan is in this movie, I want an emotional journey for this character, and Tom really embraced it,” he added about his approach. “ [I said] ‘I don’t want to string together a bunch of action scenes, I want to actually deal with character.’ So I put Ethan in a bunch of complicated moral quandaries, and I’m trying to find ways to connect them – and then, ironically, the way to connect them was through giant action scenes.”

McQuarrie also shared that Cruise will fall off something pretty remarkable and that faces from the rest of the series will be returning, but is keeping everything else secret until the movie starts shooting in April. But ultimately, it sounds like the ‘Mission: Impossible’ movie we’ve long come to expect, but perhaps with more personal stakes.

“Mission: Impossible 6” opens on July 27, 2018.