Christopher McQuarrie says Mission: Impossible 6 will be “an emotional journey”

Mission: Impossible 6 will be action-packed but also an emotional journey says Christopher McQuarrie…

One of the biggest franchises in recent cinema history is the Mission: Impossible series. Started in 1996, the film has grown into a huge juggernaut not just through its many exciting action set-pieces but also because of its knack for picking interesting storytellers to help tell Ethan Hunt’s story – whether it’s Brian de Palma, J.J. Abrams or Brad Bird, the films have maintained a freshness while other franchises have become stale.

The latest carrier of the Mission torch is Christopher McQuarrie, who’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation was one of the best in the series (some would say THE best) and went on to gross over $682million at the worldwide box office. Such was McQuarrie’s job on Mission, as well as his working relationship with Tom Cruise (McQuarrie directed the first Jack Reacher and worked on Valkyrie and Edge of Tomorrow), he is the first director to be invited back to do the follow-up.

And speaking to Empire this week on their podcast, McQuarrie has given some new info on the upcoming sixth entry and said that while all of the Mission elements will be in place, his plan is to explore Ethan’s arc a little further and just where does the secret agent come from, saying:

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

“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 would not be drawn on the specifics of the film suffice it to say some old faces would be back “including people you would not expect to be back.” Tom Cruise, naturally, is back as well as Rebecca Ferguson, with Simon Pegg, Alec Baldwin and Ving Rhames rumoured to be returning. In addition, the film is set to shoot in Paris this time.

Mission: Impossible 6 is set to open on July 27th, 2018.