In a recent interview with Light The Fuse, M: I director Chris McQuarrie explains reason for Dead Reckoning Part 1 and Part 2 titles for the next two movies. Whilst we can’t say for certain, most fans believe the upcoming two-parter will be a finale for Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character on the M: I franchise.
Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 were titled Dead Reckoning Part 1 and Part 2 respectively. Dead Reckoning Part 1 is due to hit theatres on July 14, 2023. Whereas June 28, 2024 is the current scheduled date for Part 2.
So why the Part 1 and Part 2 and not just two different subtitles like usual?
“When I came up with the title, I knew it applied more to Part Two than it did to Part One. Which is why it eventually settled on being Part One and Part Two,” McQuarrie tells Light The Fuse. “The title for the first movie was nearly a title that referred to something like a Ghost Protocol kind of thing. It was a government policy – It wasn’t a government policy. It was a government, what would you call it? A government measure of last resort, with catastrophic consequences. By the time we got to the end of Part One, that had distilled down into an entirely different set of circumstances that appear in Part Two and not in Part One. So, the word would no longer have been appropriate for the title of Part One.”
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“And yet, Dead Reckoning didn’t really apply as well to Part One as well as it did to Part Two until we started to play with the beginning of the movie, and kind of recognize that Dead Reckoning, while it sounded cool, what did it really have to do with the movie? And over the course of our, really starting to dig down into the arc of the character journey for Ethan [Hunt], it took on deeper and deeper meanings as we went,” McQuarrie concludes. “You’ll see just how thematic and how it represents. How it’s conceptually represented in every character’s journey in this film we’re in.”
I get the feeling that we should considering Dead Reckoning to be like one story split across two movies. It’s hardly a unique idea, but perhaps a tad unexpected from the M: I franchise. If Dead Reckoning Part 2 is the end of the franchise, then I doubt it will be for long. I’m sure the studio who owns the rights will be eventually looking to reboot M: I with a new lead. Will it be as good as the Tom Cruise era though? It’ll be a tough act to follow. The M: I movies since McQuarrie got involved have improved tremendously for me. Unlike most franchises M: I seems to be one that improves as it goes on, most get worse.
What do you think of Chris McQuarrie’s comments as the M: I director explains the reason for Dead Reckoning Part 1 and Part 2 titles? As always, leave any thoughts below in the usual spot.
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