The most recent installment of the long-running Tom Cruise-led Mission: Impossible movie franchise, Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning, made nearly $600 million globally. The epic spy-thriller had fans questioning whether Cruise may return to his Ethan Hunt role in the future.
While The Final Reckoning did earn $598 million at the worldwide box office when it was released in May 2025, it failed to turn a profit against its budget of $400 million. Typically, movies need to earn two to three times their production budget to break even.
Per Variety, the movie left the studio “deep in the red” and with “unanswerable questions” about the future of the Mission: Impossible franchise. The outlet asked about two dozen industry experts, including filmmakers and executives, for their input on several film franchises, including Mission: Impossible.
One screenwriter questioned Cruise’s involvement in any future film, saying the most recent Mission: Impossible movie’s “greatest strength is Tom running, but what happens when Tom can’t run anymore?”
“That franchise is suffering from a generational divide,” added a top film executive. “It was an older-skewing audience,” they added.
A marketing executive shared, “It’s tough when you have a franchise hung on a single actor. I’m just not sure how much equity there’s left in that.” Another executive shared that they didn’t think the Mission: Impossible franchise could survive without Cruise leading the way. “He is the franchise,” they said.
The Final Reckoning featured a cast that included, in addition to Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Janet McTeer, and Tramell Tillman. The film’s logline reads: “With governments and a figure from his past in pursuit, Ethan Hunt races to stop it from forever changing the world. Hunt and the IMF pursue a dangerous AI called the Entity that’s infiltrated global intelligence. With governments and a figure from his past in pursuit, Hunt races to stop it from forever changing the world.”
Tom Cruise Set a Record with His Mission: Impossible Stunts
Ethan Hunt hanging from the wing of a yellow biplane in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Image via Paramount Pictures
The film was directed by Christopher McQuarrie and written by McQuarrie, based on the original television series created by Bruce Geller. Cruise, who is known for performing his own movie stunts, set a Guinness World Record when he performed 16 burning parachute jumps for a scene in The Final Reckoning.
Cruise recalled filming the famous biplane battle in The Final Reckoning in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “That almost broke my back,” he said. While the scene ran for about 12 minutes in the movie, McQuarrie said much more time was spent filming it.
“This separated the joints in Tom’s fingers from the force, so by the time we finished the sequence, your hands were absolutely swollen – oh my God, it was so painful to watch. Oh, God, that was brutal,” the director added.
The Final Reckoning could be the final installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise that Cruise began starring in back in 1996. Per ScreenRant, a cut post-credits scene alluded to the idea that fans have not seen the last of Ethan Hunt. When questioned about what that scene may have included, McQuarrie said, “I’m not gonna say because it might end up in another movie.”
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is available on PVOD platforms.