This is huge news. Writer and director Christopher McQuarrie has accepted his next mission, which will be the next two Mission: Impossible Movies. You heard that right! Variety’s Justin Kroll revealed the scoop yesterday afternoon, saying that McQuarrie has officially signed in to be in complete charge of the next two installments. And through he and star Tom Cruise’s social media, they seem very excited and eager to get back to work.

It’s your lucky day! That’s not the only news that came with the reveal. He report also emphasized that the studio is planning to shoot the two movies back-to-back and release them the same way. That means we’ll be getting Mission: Impossible 7 in 2021 and Mission: Impossible 8 in 2022! While it does seem like a long way away, especially because the franchise is at its all-time highest right now, don’t worry. Paramount has slotted the movies in these spots because they also have another massive Tom Cruise action flick coming out in 2020, Top Gun: Maverick. McQuarrie isn’t directing that project, but he has been involved with touching up the script, more specifically action set pieces, which is what he’s best at.

While it was already the case with Fallout, McQuarrie returning for more movies is a massive shift for the franchise. Before Fallout, each film was directed by a new name, but by the time McQuarrie is all said and done, he will have directed half of the franchise (4 of the 8), and that doesn’t include the doctoring he did on the script for Brad Bird’s Ghost Protocol. The series has found its footing over the last three installments, so it makes complete sense as to why Paramount is doubling down on more movies and doing whatever they can to keep McQuarrie interested in doing them. The writer/director is obviously loving his work with the studio and Cruise, as he has turned down many opportunities (more on that in a separate article) to keep making more of the best action movies currently going.

Fallout was easily the biggest success the franchise had thus far. Not only did it rake in a whopping $790 million, which tops the series, but it continued and enhanced the beautiful mixture of killer action and character/narrative storytelling that it was lacking early on. It’s the reason why these movies continue to keep going and a large part why Fallout, for me, was the best overall film of 2018. It goes without saying how ecstatic I am about this news. I can’t wait to see this guy do other gigantic properties out in the movie-verse, but I’m just as excited to see what other awesomeness he’s going to throw at us from the world of Ethan Hunt.

What do you think of this news? First off, are you a fan of these movies? Is McQuarrie the right guy for the job or do you want to see fresh blood? Was Fallout a good ending for you or are you looking forward to more? Who do you want to see return alongside Cruise? No official release dates have been set, but production for the films are expected to start in late 2019.