Your mission, Pearce, should you choose to accept is to inject a degree of vitality into Mission: Impossible 5 in the manner of your screenplay workings with Iron Man 3. Well, maybe that’s not quite how the phone call went, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, Drew Pearce has landed the job of penning the fifth instalment in Tom Cruise’s mega franchise.
Though Mission Impossible 5 was confirmed shortly after Brad Bird’s mid-franchise reboot – namely Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol – in 2011, it was only last week that the production became official and Tom Cruise signed the dotted line to reprise his role as globe-trotting IMF (Impossible Mission Forces) agent, Ethan Hunt. And now, with Drew Pearce firmly behind the creative wheel, news confirming the film’s director shouldn’t be too far away – mind you, Christopher McQuarrie seems to have his nose in front.
Plot details are on a strict need-to-know basis right now, but it will most likely revolve around a global terrorist threat with a few plot macguffins thrown in for good measure. Pearce had a brief background in television before the adventures of Tony Stark but, given the success of Iron Man 3 and the way he and director Shane Black reinvented everyone’s favourite genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, it’s no wonder he’s become a coveted scribe in the industry of film.
Along with his work on Guillermo Del Toro’s script for Pacific Rim, he has also been drafted in to assist writing Sherlock Holmes 3. Here is a screenwriter with a promising penchant for the blockbuster genre, and even though Mission Impossible is a lucratively successful franchise – the fourth film collected $700 million worldwide – the addition of Pearce will hopefully prevent Ethan Hunt’s next covert adventure feeling stale and forced.
We’ll keep you posted about Mission Impossible 5 as the production starts to gain pace, particularly who will sit in that coveted director’s chair. Tom Cruise, who also produces the films, will hope to get the cameras rolling this fall after completing The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Meanwhile, let us know whether you believe that Drew Pearce is the right man to spice up the mega franchise in the comments below.