has never shied away from upping the ante, but the next—and reportedly last—chapter in Ethan Hunt’s Mission: Impossible run will ask audiences for a little extra stamina in more ways than one. According to Paramount’s official confirmation, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
is breaking records even before it is released with the franchise’s longest runtime. 2023’s Dead Reckoning Part One previously held the record with a 163-minute length, but this year’s sequel clocks in at 169 minutes, or two hours and 49 minutes for those who like it colloquial terms.
Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie have treated each installment as a chance to top the previous one in stunt work and globe-trotting scale, and that has often led to an increasing runtime. The production for the new movie lasted over two years, and filmed in locations as far-flung as the Arctic Circle, South Africa, and multiple European capitals. Naturally, with a movie franchise like Mission: Impossible there is a belief that bigger is better – at least that is how Cruise approaches his stuntwork on the movies – but there also comes a time when it can all end up as being a little too much.
Long runtimes have become common in event cinema—No Time to Die ran 2:43, John Wick: Chapter 4 2:49, Oppenheimer a full 3:00—but Final Reckoning’s huge length shows how much more expansive the franchise has become since its original 1996 release came in at a laughable 110 minutes. The escalation certainly mirrors Cruise’s love of developing movies with extended stunt sequences, and if this is the last time out for Ethan Hunt, that could just be because he couldn’t possibly top what is coming next month.
Source: ComicBook