Unfortunately, it appears that Nicholas Hoult won’t be appearing in the upcoming “Mission: Impossible” sequel, as was previously announced. And when you think about someone that can possibly step in and replace Hoult, while also being a very similar onscreen presence, clearly you think of Esai Morales. Right?
According to Deadline, Esai Morales is set to take over the role as the villain in the upcoming “Mission: Impossible 7” from a departing Nicholas Hoult. No reason is given for Hoult leaving the film, but it wouldn’t be shocking to find out it’s because of the extensive delays in production given the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless of the reason, the replacement of Hoult with Morales is a bit of a head-scratcher.
Sure, Morales is a great actor, having appeared in films and TV series such as “NYPD Blue,” “La Bamba,” and recently, Netflix’s hit drama, “Ozark.” There’s no denying that Morales can probably step into the villain role in Christopher McQuarrie’s upcoming action film and do great. But as a replacement for Hoult? That’s strange.
Morales is a Latinx man in his late-50s, whereas Hoult is a British guy that just turned 30. How these guys can both play the same character is surprising, to say the least. Either they’re rewriting the character to better suit Morales and maybe the casting of Hoult just wasn’t working, or maybe the villain is so non-specific that you can easily plug in any actor in the script and it works just fine. If the latter is true, that doesn’t necessarily lead us to believe the villain in “Mission: Impossible 7” is going to be as deep and specific as we might hope.
But hey, both are fine actors and McQuarrie has yet to disappoint on a ‘Mission: Impossible’ film, so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. “Mission: Impossible 7” is expected to hit theaters on November 19, 2021.