Jeremy Renner to Take Over ‘Mission: Impossible’ Franchise from Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise is now shooting for the fourth installment in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, called “Ghost Protocol.” Jeremy Renner is also in it – and will probably take over from Cruise in the upcoming installments.

As fans must know, Cruise is agent Ethan Hunt in the films, but chances are he may feel he’s getting too old for the part or, even more likely, that he no longer wants to be a part of the franchise.

Speculation about how Paramount ordered the fourth installment with Cruise just because it wanted to reboot the “M:I” franchise by having him directly hand it over to a younger star (who happened to be Renner) has been around since the official announcement was made.

Now, Renner himself seems to be confirming talk of such a plan, revealing in a recent interview cited by DigitalSpy that he may have to take over from Cruise in any upcoming “M:I” film.

“It’s a franchise to potentially take over. I can’t predict the future and what they want, but that’s certainly the idea,” Renner revealed in a sit-down with MTV, as cited by the aforementioned e-zine.

Pressed for more details on how the takeover might happen, Renner backtracked, saying he couldn’t possibly reveal such a major detail in the plot – granted it even existed.

“I can’t really go into the details of the script, because that’s still evolving. It’s Tom’s baby. He’s the engine behind the thing. What happens after that, we’ll see,” Renner also said.

“Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” is out in theaters in 2011, and stars, aside from Renner and Cruise, Paula Patton, Ving Rhames, Josh Holloway, Simon Pegg and Anil Kapoor.

Cruise has been shooting scenes for it since September this year, in between breaks from promoting the critically-panned “Knight & Day,” getting a lot of media attention for doing most of his stunts, as we also informed you at the time.

Keep an eye on this space for more details on whether Jeremy Renner’s Brandt in “M:I 4” will turn out to be the new and improved Ethan Hunt in future installments in the franchise.