Has “Mission Impossible 4” found the man to take over the franchise for Tom Cruise? That speculation on our part may be premature as we don’t know what their roles are but “The Hurt Locker” star Anthony Mackie, Kevin Zegers (Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead,” “Gossip Girl” and “Transamerica”) and Australian actor Christopher Egan (“Letters To Juliet”) are all apparently set to test opposite Cruise for a role in “Mission Impossible 4.”
If they are all vying for the same role, which we can assume they are, it probably means Paramount is casting a wide net and perhaps are looking at many different directions to take this film (and possibly don’t know what the hell they want). It would appear by this disparate group of actors that director Brad Bird, producer J.J. Abrams and co. aren’t exactly clear how they want to slice the 4th installment in their franchise. Mackie is clearly the way you want to go if you want a serious actor on board (he’s fantastic and one day Hollywood will see they have an actor of Denzel Washington caliber — or higher — mark our words), but the other two are pretty boy non-entities and Zegers is clearly Zac Efron-lite.
The Wrap says that Cruise is producing alongside J.J. Abrams who directed “Mission Impossible 3,” but also note Paramount denied their reporting here (still probably correct, but…). Of course, we think Mackie deserves the role and can likely act circles around the other two assclowns, but it’s probably more about who Cruise has chemistry with and who will bring the box-office numbers. Mackie probably will take a Pacino-like career route anyhow and doesn’t need this dreck which ranks high among our unnecessary sequels list.