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| © CHRIS DELMAS/AFP/Getty Images |
Ethan Hunt is getting a blast from the past in the next two Mission: Impossible movies. On Saturday, Mission: Impossible - Fallout filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie teased that Ethan Hunt antagonist Eugene Kittridge will be returning for the first time since 1996's Mission: Impossible.
"There is no escaping the past... #MI7MI8," McQuarrie shared on social media, alongside a photo of Kittridge in the original Mission: Impossible film. McQuarrie has been announcing casting news sporadically for several months on social media, and The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that actor Henry Czerny will be reprising the role of Kittridge.
Kittridge was the director of the Impossible Mission Force and hunted Ethan Hunt after it was believed the agent had gone bad. He shared a number of memorable scenes with Hunt, including one of which prompted the agent to utter the classic line, "Kittridge, you've never seen me very upset." In recent years, Czerny has appeared in projects such as Ready or Not and Sharp Objects.
McQuarrie will write and direct two more Mission: Impossible films after previously helming 2015's Rogue Nation and 2018's Fallout. Historically, the Mission films have been one-offs with few thrulines to previous movies, however that has been changing in recent installments. Fallout not only continued the story of Rogue Nation, it also introduced White Widow (Vanessa Kirby), who was the daughter of Max (Vanessa Redgrave), the arms dealer not seen since the 1996 original.
The next two Mission films have a sprawling cast, including Nicholas Hoult, who sources say is playing the villain, as well as Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham and Guardians of the Galaxy star Pom Klementieff.
Paramount and Skydance has dated the next Mission: Impossible film for July 23, 2021, while the eighth installment will be released on Aug. 5, 2022.
