Every studio around the world is having to shift movies around and rearrange its calendar due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. That includes Paramount, who has decided to push back the release of Mission: Impossible 7 and Mission: Impossible 8.
The Tom Cruise movie, which has a cult following of its own, will now release on November 19, 2021, instead of July 21, 2021. On the other hand, the eighth instalment of the franchise will release on November 2, 2022, instead of August 5, 2022.
The date shift puts M:I 7 against Disney’s untitled live-action movie and Warner Bros.’s Will Smith drama King Richard.
On the other hand, M:I 8 will also face competition from Warner Bros.’s Shazam! 2.
Mission: Impossible is an action spy film series that is based on and is a follow on from Bruce Geller’s TV series of the same name. The movie stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, an agent of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF).
All the movies of the franchise have been big earners. Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the sixth movie of the series, earned $791.1 million on a budget of $178 million. It is the highest-grossing movie of the entire series. The one before, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, earned $682.7 million on a budget of $150 million. The series, as a whole, has been able to rake in $3.570 billion on a total budget of $828 million (all 6 movies).
The seventh and eighth instalments are supposed to be directed by Christopher McQuarrie.
Other movies that are getting new release dates are:
- The Chris Pratt-starrer sci-fi movie The Tomorrow War will now release on July 23, 2021. Previously, the movie was supposed to release on Christmas this year. At the moment, it stands without any competition, since the date was previously occupied by M:I 7. However, it will release the week after Spider-Man 3 and Space Jam 2 and the week before Jungle Cruise starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt.
- The Dungeons & Dragons reboot will release on May 27, 2022, from November 19, 2021.
- Animated movie Paw Patrol, based on the hit children’s series, will release on August 20, 2021.
- Spell, the Omari Hardwick horror-thriller, has been removed from the studio’s calendar.
- Blue Story, which was previously supposed to release on March 20, does not have a date yet.
Paramount had previously pushed back the release of A Quiet Place Part II to September 4. Apart from this, the studio also pushed back the upcoming James Bond movie No Time To Die and Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (January 15, 2021).
Other than delaying movies, a lot of movies have also opted for a digital release including The Lovebirds, starring Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani, which will release directly to Netflix.
The coronavirus has proved to be a curse for the entertainment industry. However, streaming services are enjoying monopoly at the moment, with people subscribing to these services to entertain themselves in the midst of self-isolation.