Mission: Impossible 7 director says next entry will fix past problem that left Tom Cruise ‘dissatisfied’

‘Dead Reckoning Part Two’ is currently in production

Christopher McQuarrie, the director of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, has claimed that the forthcoming sequel will address a regret from a previous film.

The filmmaker, who has directed the last four entries in the popular Mission: Impossible action franchise, spoke in a new interview about him and Cruise being “dissatisfied” with aspects of the fifth instalment, 2015’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

The sequence in question was set underwater.

“Tom and I are constantly re-evaluating our own work and asking ourselves how we could have done it better,” McQuarrie said, in an interview with Collider.

McQuarrie and Cruise previously worked together on films including the 2014 sci-fi thriller Edge of Tomorrow, which McQuarrie co-wrote and produced.

“We’ve done underwater sequences previously. We’ve worked underwater in Edge of Tomorrow, and we worked underwater in Rogue Nation, and we left very dissatisfied with those sequences,” McQuarrie continued.

“And we analyse why we were dissatisfied. What were all the factors working against us? The biggest being, not having real knowledge in that area. Everything you’re looking at in Dead Reckoning is the application of knowledge from previous sequences.”

McQuarrie revealed that Dead Reckoning Part Two will feature ambitious underwater sequences, which required Tom Cruise to hold his breath for long periods of time.

Tom Cruise in ‘Dead Reckoning' (Paramount)

According to the director, Cruise was able to hold his breath underwater for up to six and a half minutes. However, McQuarrie said that doing so was “physically punishing”, adding that he wouldn’t “recommend it to anybody who doesn’t want to make a lifestyle out of it”.

In a four-star review of Dead Reckoning Part One for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “Mission: Impossible is exactly the sort of franchise in which people simply roll their eyes when the bomb they’re trying to detonate turns out (of course!) to be a nuclear one. That lack of ponderousness is embedded bone-deep into Dead Reckoning, and how returning director Christopher McQuarrie chooses to operate.

“The action sequences are consistently dynamic, and always adapted to their environment: a shoot-out in a sandstorm focuses on stealth and precision, while a Vespa chase down Rome’s many staircases is all cartoon chaos. It all culminates in an absolutely insane stunt in which Cruise drives a motorcycle off a cliff and then parachutes down onto a moving train. You will leave Dead Reckoning the same way you always do: wondering how Cruise could possibly outdo himself in the next one – until, inevitably, he does.”

Dead Reckoning Part One is out in cinemas now.