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Mission Impossible III - A Second Sequel?

By Hervé St.Louis
December 25, 2005 - 22:55

Come May 5, 2006 in North America and several other regions, Paramount Pictures will release the third movie from the Mission Impossible franchise, starring Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, a secret agent foiling the schemes of global terrorists. This movie will be release 10 years after the first Mission Impossible movie starring Cruise and Emmanuelle Béart and directed by Brian De Palma.

The second Mission Impossible movie was released in 2000 and co-starred Thandie Newton. This movie was of particular interests to fans of Hong Kong movies, as it was directed by noted action adventure director John Woo, better known for his high pitch film action choreography. Television director Jeffrey Adams, the creator of Felicity, Lost and Alias will be directing the Mission Impossible 3, also dubbed MI-3.

MI-3, just like MI-2, before, are plays on words referring to the British MI-6 the British secret service unit popularized by competing spy franchise James Bond. Of note, the last two Mission Impossible films borrowed heavily from the James Bond concept of a hot shot hero and beautiful damsels in distress. The main difference between the two franchises, was that Ethan Hunt, unlike Agent 007, acted with little support from his agency.

An aspect retained from the original Mission Impossible, that aired from 1966 to 1973 on CBS are the boobie-trapped messages that explode quickly after agents had read their missions’ instructions. There was a second TV series in 1988 with main actor Peter Graves continuing the role of chief agent Jim Phelps. The original creator of the series, Bruce Geller who also directed the second tv series, is one of the credited writers on Mission Impossible 3

A PC game of Mission Impossible was released in 1991. Although named after the television show, the action was limited to San Francisco, where players were asked to create a team from a list to fight crime. A second game was released in 1998 with animated characters based on the 1996 blockbuster.

Fans of Mission Impossible often complain that the films don’t capture the intelligence of the original television series. With the series’ original creator on staff, Paramount could be trying to end criticisms on its spy franchise. Perhaps looking beyond the traditional format of the spy thriller, like Universal Pictures’ Bourne film franchise instead of Sony’s James Bond, scheduled for another release for November 17, 2006, is the solution.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12