14 DAY TRIAL // After months of speculation and rumors that he had lost confidence in himself to pull off the part, Tom Cruise has returned to the “Mission: Impossible” franchise – and the first photos of him as Ethan Hunt are out.
As we also informed you a while back, Cruise is back on the franchise for the fourth installment, while newcomers include Jeremy Renner and the recently-cast Josh Halloway.
Just the other day, Tom was in Japan promoting “Knight and Day” with Cameron Diaz – but before that, he was in Prague, working on the upcoming spy / action flick, as ScreenCave can confirm.
The first photos of him on location show him in uniform, probably on a secret mission as Ethan and doing, as the e-zine puts it, “what he knows best: hiding in plain sight.”
“Mission Impossible 4 will have Cruise reuniting with Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, to form a new team with Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, and Holloway,” ScreenCrave further writes.
“The sequel will be directed by Brad Bird, who’ll be taking a leap from the genre of animation with this project. JJ Abrams and Cruise will both produce and of course Paramount will distribute,” the report further says.
“Mission Impossible 4 is scheduled to hit theaters on December 16, 2011. Does this seem like a Christmas movie to you? Nope, we didn’t think so,” ScreenCrave adds.
Production for “Mission: Impossible 4” will take place in Prague, Dubai, and Vancouver. Presumably, after Japan, Cruise will go back to working on the film.
Hopefully, once it’s out, it will prove that he still has what it takes to bring in millions of dollars in ticket sales, because Paramount Pictures has reportedly lost all confidence in him after a series of not-so-excellent releases.
“Insiders tell Vulture that Paramount has lost so much confidence in Tom Cruise that it’s radically restructured his financial compensation and secured much – some say as much as half – of Mission: Impossible 4’s expected $135 million production budget from David Ellison, scion of Oracle Corporation billionaire, Larry Ellison,” NY Mag’s Vulture was saying a while back, as we also reported.