Tom Cruise Wants to Make ‘Mission: Impossible’s When He’s 80

The new Mission: Impossible movie is so massive they split it into two parts. Dead Reckoning Part One debuts in theaters later this month, while Part Two follows next year. And then, that’s it, right? That’s how you close out a series that has been going on for nearly 30 years now.

That is not it. And it’s certainly not what producer/star Tom Cruise has in mind for Mission: Impossible. Amidst the global press tour for Dead Reckoning Part One, Cruise told The Sydney Morning Herald that his ambition is to carry on as super spy Ethan Hunt for at least another two decades, in order to put him in the same category as Harrison Ford, who just headlined a new Indiana Jones at the age of 80.

“Harrison Ford is a legend; I hope to be still going; I’ve got 20 years to catch up with him,” Cruise explained. “I hope to keep making Mission: Impossible films until I’m his age.” (Cruise is currently 61 years old.)

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I could have sworn that when they announced Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 as this massive back-to-back enterprise that they had done so saying this is how they were finally concluding the franchise. But clearly I was wrong! If Cruise gets his way, he’ll make two of the biggest action movies back-to-back and then … he’ll go back to making at least two or three more of them, given the rate he’s produced the other Mission: Impossible movies.

Now it should be noted that while Indiana Jones is certainly an action movie, 80-year-old Harrison Ford doesn’t perform anywhere near the level of stunts that 61-year-old Tom Cruise does in the typical Mission: Impossible. In the new Indy, Ford rides a horse, he has a few brief fights, he takes a fall or two, but there’s a fair amount of stuntmen and CGI involved as well. He’s not dangling off skyscrapers or jumping motorcycles off cliffs. Doing that sort of stuff at 80 … well, I don’t want to say it would be an impossible mission, but it sure as heck wouldn’t be easy.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One opens in theaters on July 12. The second part of the film is scheduled to premiere on June 28, 2024.