Mission: Impossible 5 Release Date, Cast News: Tom Cruise Returns as Ethan Hawke, Rebecca Ferguson Rumored to Play Female Lead, With Sean Harris as Main Movie Baddie

By Kara Michelle Oct 30, 2014 07:04 AM EDT

Mission: Impossible 5 Release Date, Cast News: Tom Cruise Returns as Ethan Hawke, Rebecca Ferguson Rumored to Play Female Lead, With Sean Harris as Main Movie Baddie

Mission: Impossible 5 release date is December 25, 2015, as per Paramount Pictures schedule. The fifth installment in the franchise is being directed by Christopher McQuarrie from a screenplay written by Drew Pearce and Will Staples. Tom Cruise returns as star, reprising his role of IMF agent and main movie protagonist Ethan Hunt, and co-produces the project as well.

Aside from Cruise, the Mission: Impossible 5 cast includes Jeremy Renner as William Brandt, Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell, along with Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Alec Baldwin, Simon McBurney, Leo Atkins, Stella Stocker, Asim Ahmad, Mingus Johnston, Ulli Ackerman, Rupert Wickham, Robert Maaser, and Ait ben Azzouz Brahim in still undisclosed roles. Although her character in the film has not yet been revealed, Rebecca Ferguson will reportedly play the female lead in the Mission: Impossible 5 full movie. Simon McBurney will play her boss in the film. On the other hand, Alec Baldwin is rumored to play the head of CIA in the fifth installment in the long-running franchise. Sean Harris will reportedly play the movie's big bad according to We Got This Covered.

Filming for Mission: Impossible 5 began in Vienna, Austria, in August. From there, the set was moved to Morocco. In fact the entire Marrakech Highway was closed to traffic from August 30 to September 12 because of the production activities. OnSeptember 28, the shooting location was shifted to London where Cruise and Ferguson were spotted on the set by Coming Soon. The permit to use the House of Parliament for the shooting has reportedly already been approved. As filming is still underway, there's of course no official Mission: Impossible 5 trailer just yet.

The Mission: Impossible film franchise series started in 1996 with Brian De Palma directing the first movie. The fourth in the series, Ghost Protocol, was the most critically acclaimed and most commercially successful in the series. The movie franchise is based on the popular television series of the same name created by Bruce Geller which aired from 1966 to 1973 and again from 1988 to 1990.