'Mission: Impossible 5' Takes Production Break To Rework Ending [Updated]

We're getting mixed messages from Mission: Impossible 5. On one hand, Paramount moved the Tom Cruise film up from a Christmas 2016 release to a July 31 date. (No doubt partially inspired by fear of Star Wars.) But that doesn't mean that everything is going perfectly well with the film, and reports now say the Mission Impossible 5 ending needs some work, and so the movie has taken a break from production in order to rework the ending, which "was deemed unsatisfactory."

Update: Director Christopher McQuarrie has responded, briefly, to the report.

That quoted language and the primary report come from THR, which says the London shoot is on hold for a few days as director Christopher McQuarrie takes time to "work out a new and improved finale with a writer friend whose identity remains a mystery and who will neither be paid nor credited."

Of course, this could mostly be an easy story in the slow runup to Oscar weekend, and several people THR speaks to reference World War Z, another Paramount movie that had problems nailing the ending. The problems there were much larger than these are being made out to be, and the film turned out to be fine, at least from a financial perspective.

(Fans of the novel World War Z have plenty to complain about, but those complaints are related to issues that were baked into the film's approach almost from day one.)

One of THR's sources downplays any problems, saying "Chris, Tom [Cruise] and a third person wanted to take a minute to get from what they thought was a good place to a more perfect place." So mysterious with that "third person" comment! Regardless, we'll hope this does make the film better one way or the other, and if the ending works when the film is released, only a few die-hards will even remember this happened.

We'll still wonder who the mystery ending consultant is, however.

Update: McQuarrie gave a little shout to THR from the set of the film today. Whether or not this disputes the trade report is open to question, at least with respect to trouble with the ending, but it does suggest the film is still shooting.