‘Mission: Impossible 7’ Reportedly Will Cost $290 Million To Produce & Might End On A Cliffhanger

Well before the pandemic arrived, people were already anxiously awaiting the release of “Mission: Impossible 7” and “Mission: Impossible 8.” The duo of star Tom Cruise and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie have already turned in multiple sequels to the franchise, each eclipsing the previous in terms of box office gross and overall quality. But then the pandemic hit and the ‘M:I’ franchise might have been hurt more than any other in terms of delays and production costs.

According to a new report from Variety, the pandemic has taken an already expensive “Mission: Impossible 7” and turned it into the priciest sequel in the franchise, maybe one of the most costly films of all time. For context, “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” is hardly an indie film, costing $190 million in production costs. But the new report says that a variety of issues has raised the price of the seventh ‘M:I’ film to upwards of $290 million. 

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The budget is getting hit hard due to various factors, but mostly due to the reported seven (yes, seven) times the film has had to halt production due to COVID. And because the film is shot mostly on location, and exotic locations at that, there is a larger risk of COVID stoppage than there would be for a closed sound stage, such as where Marvel Studios films are largely shot. 

Then you have the fact that the film is being delayed constantly, which apparently isn’t all due to the pandemic and the costly production. The report claims that the next two sequels, which were supposed to shoot concurrently but are now being shot back-to-back, are supposed to serve as a bit of a swansong for Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character. And thusly, the seventh film is reportedly set to end with a bit of a cliffhanger. Because of this, Cruise is supposedly asking for “Mission: Impossible 7” to be delayed until after “Mission: Impossible 8” is done with production so that there isn’t an extended break between releases. 

This would explain why the film was recently delayed from September 30 to July 14, 2023. This will allow for the eighth film to finish production in time, as that film is expected to begin production shortly. 

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Back to the costs for a second, you have to wonder how Paramount and Skydance expect to make their money back? A $290 million film will need to make at least twice its budget for a profit, especially when you consider the theaters are going to take their cut and the inflated marketing budgets for these blockbusters. For context, “Mission: Impossible—Fallout” earned more than $791 million worldwide, which seems like a huge number. But that is barely going to be enough for ‘M:I 7’ to sniff profitability. Then you have to think about the fact that ‘Fallout’ earned almost $200 million just in China alone. As we’ve seen with the last year or so, China is being incredibly selective with its choices of American imports, with many blockbusters not even getting released in the country. (“Spider-Man: No Way Home” has earned more than $1.77 billion without ANY China release, for example.) 

All that to say, the “Mission: Impossible” franchise is going to be going through a lot of changes in the next few years and it’ll be interesting to see how much money the new sequels will earn and if the franchise can actually turn a profit in a pandemic-influenced world.