Mission: Impossible (film series): Difference between revisions

The Mission: Impossible films are a series of action films based on the television series of the same name. The films feature Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, an IMF agent. The series is the 13th highest grossing film series of all time with $2 billion worth of world-wide sales.

Set in 1996, Ethan Hunt is framed for not only the murder of his fellow IMF agents during a Prague Embassy mission gone wrong, but is also wrongly accused of selling government secrets to a mysterious international criminal known only as "Max".

Set in 2000, Ethan Hunt sends Nyah Nordoff-Hall undercover to stop an ex-IMF agent's mad scheme to steal a deadly virus and sell the antidote to the highest bidder.

Set in 2006, Ethan Hunt, retired from being an IMF team leader and engaged to be married, assembles a team to face a ruthless arms and information broker intending to sell a mysterious dangerous object known as "The Rabbit's Foot".

Set in 2011, Ethan Hunt, as well as the entire IMF are placed with the blame of the bombing of the Kremlin. He and three others must stop a man bent on a global nuclear war.

In a 5 December 2011 interview it was revealed that Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, and Brad Bird are all interested in returning for a fifth Mission: Impossible film.^[1] Paramount is also reportedly interested in fast-tracking a fifth film due to the success of the fourth.^[2] On 16 April 2012 Bird confirmed that he might not come back to direct the film.^[3]

Some fans of the TV series were upset that Jim Phelps, team leader in the series, became a traitor in the first movie, selling the details of government agents to an arms dealer. Actor Greg Morris, who portrayed Barney Collier in the original television series, was so disgusted with the film's treatment of the Phelps character that he walked out of the theater before the film ended.^[17] Martin Landau, who portrayed Rollin Hand in the original series, was equally negative concerning the films. In an MTV interview in October 2009, Landau stated: "When they were working on an early incarnation of the first one – not the script they ultimately did – they wanted the entire team to be destroyed, done away with one at a time, and I was against that", he said. "It was basically an action-adventure movie and not 'Mission.' 'Mission' was a mind game. The ideal mission was getting in and getting out without anyone ever knowing we were there. So the whole texture changed. Why volunteer to essentially have our characters commit suicide? I passed on it. The script wasn't that good either."^[18]

The television version is in a rarely used 5/4 (5 beats to a measure) time and is difficult to dance to, as was proven by a memorable segment of American Bandstand in which teenage dancers were caught off-guard by Dick Clark's playing of the Lalo Schifrin single release.^[19]

The opening theme music for the first three films are stylized renditions of Lalo Schifrin's original iconic theme, preserving the 5/4 rhythm, by Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, and Michael Giacchino respectively by the films' chronology. Most of the versions included in the score also retained the 5/4 time signature.^[19]

However, for Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen Jr.'s remix featured on the first film's motion picture soundtrack, the time signature was changed to standard pop 4/4 (4 beats to a measure) time to make it more dance-friendly, although the intro is still in 5/4 time.^[19] Also, the Limp Bizkit song "Take a Look Around" from the soundtrack to the second film was set to a similar 4/4 modification of the theme, with an interlude in 5/4.

• "Box Office History for Mission: Impossible Movies". The Numbers.