Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie addressed rumours about Tom Cruise leaving the franchise, during an interview with Light the Fuse podcast. In previous reports by Variety, per ET Canada, sources revealed that Cruise was planning an exit from the franchise after its upcoming two sequels in 2023 and 2024 as they shared that the two flicks will act as "a sendoff for Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character."

Neither denying nor confirming the rumours McQuarrie further added, "Let me tell you, I’ve been working with Tom Cruise for 15 years and I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been standing next to the man, witnessed an event and then read about it in the trades the next day and none of what they describe is actually true."

Recalling an incident from years ago he added, "We were in Birmingham shooting a scene between Tom and Haley [Atwell]. The next day I read an article in the paper that said Tom and four other guests went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant. I read that Tom insisted on sitting at a table not in a private room but in the main restaurant with the other diners and that Tom ordered three orders of chicken masala because he liked it so much." He added, "I called Tom the next day and said, ‘There’s something weird about this article. It’s 100 per cent factually correct!’" McQuarrie quipped, "That’s the first time I’ve read an article in which everything happened exactly as written."

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