Unless a certain film about interstellar skirmishes impresses as much as the hype machine necessitates, it feels safe to say now, more than a week into December, that the year’s finest blockbuster was Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. (Max Rockatansky came close, but no movie varied its action sequences so well.) No one will give a better look behind this perfectly engineered thrill machine than writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, so why not settle in for a 159-minute, longer-than-his-movie installment of the Empire Podcast in which he breaks open the extensive production process. It’s an honest examination, one filled with disagreements and frustrations that emerged from the whole thing, and only buoyed this writer’s appreciation of the final result. If nothing else, I can’t say I’m any less happy that he’ll be back for the sixth installment.
Also returning, as we’ve just learned, is Rebecca Ferguson, who seemingly came from nowhere to make a huge impression on audiences as the deadly MI6 agent Ilsa Faust. ShowBiz411 indicate her involvement is a done deal, making this the first time a female lead has made successive appearances in series installments — or, hopefully, appearances that matter. Remember when Michelle Monaghan‘s wife character whose name I’ll never remember “returned from the dead” at the end of Ghost Protocol? My guess is that they’ll play this one a little smarter.
Listen to the full talk below:
Mission: Impossible 6 is expected to begin production in August for a summer 2017 release.