Mission: Impossible typically goes against the grain of modern, CGI-led blockbuster filmmaking - but does Mission: Impossible - Fallout bow down to modern trends and have an end-credits scene?
Mission: Impossible - Fallout is unique in the franchise for being its first direct sequel. Previous movies retained some secondary characters but were mostly standalone adventures. This time, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt (joined by Simon Pegg’s Benji, Ving Rhames’ Luthor and Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa) have a returning villain (Sean Harris’ Solomon Lane) continuing his personally-motivated plot for world domination. Is the story going to continue in Mission: Impossible 7?
If you’re beaten by Mission: Impossible 6’s nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime and a large soda, then don’t fret: Mission: Impossible - Fallout doesn’t have an end-credits scene. There is the heavily stylish cast list to watch and sticking around for the crawling names is always good for the accompanying score, but there’s no secret scene in the middle or after.
This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to Mission: Impossible fans. None of the previous five films in the franchise have had an after-credits scene of any kind (not even a James Bond-style “Ethan Hunt will return”), and even with Fallout breaking from tradition with its continuing story (and the return of director Christopher McQuarrie), that would probably be too much of a step to take. Besides, when it comes to teasing the plot of an upcoming movie, Mission: Impossible goes for something direct anyway: every movie’s opening credits feature an old-school montage that provides an outline of the plot, villain twists and all. With Fallout, it is certainly possible to figure out what’s going to happen later a couple of hours ahead of time.
The bigger reason for no Mission: Impossible - Fallout end-credits scene is that the new release isn’t too concerned with setting up a Mission: Impossible 7. Indeed, whether there is a seventh entry is still unclear. Tom Cruise is now 56 years old, pushing the limits of his ridiculous, life-risking stunts, and these films tend to be made one-at-a-time (there was a three-year gap between Fallout and previous entry Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation) so there’s nothing to tease. Still, given that Mission: Impossible - Fallout is expected to be one of the big hits of Summer 2018 (and Pegg has said the series shows “no signs of slowing down”), don’t expect this to be the end of Ethan Hunt just yet.
