Tom Cruise hasn't been straying too far from writer/director Christopher McQuarrie over the years, with the two pairing up on
Valkyrie,
Jack Reacher, and next year's sci-fi flick
Edge of Tomorrow. Mostly it's been a successful partnership, and with
Cruise dropping everything and focusing his energies on
Mission: Impossible 5, it's been
expected that McQuarrie would step into the director's chair. He's picked up a few other projects along the way, including a remake of
Ice Station Zebra and an adaptation of the U.K.'s
Unforgiven, but earlier today McQuarrie took to his
Twitter feed with this message, "Mission Accepted", confirming he will direct M:I5.
No details are available at this early stage, of course, but we know that Cruise will be back as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, and that Simon Pegg has set aside time in his 2014 schedule to return as tech agent Benji Dunn. No word on if Jeremy Renner will return, although it would be strange if he didn't considering he was once being groomed as Cruise's eventual replacement.
McQuarrie has some tough shoes to fill taking over for Brad Bird, who led
Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol to $694M worldwide. The sequel will feature a script by Drew Pearce (
Iron Man 3), and it will likely be a part of the jam packed 2015 slate.
