Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 Casts Guardians of the Galaxy’s Pom Klementieff

Pom Klementieff will temporarily take leave of the Guardians of the Galaxy film franchise to accept the mission of tackling a new film franchise, joining Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and company in the upcoming Mission: Impossible movies.

Director Christopher McQuarrie has made the casting of Klementieff official, confirming her presence for not just 2021’s untitled Mission: Impossible 7, but 2022’s (also untitled) follow-up, Mission: Impossible 8. The director dropped the news in a tweet that, while short on specific character details, did provide a potent tease asking, “How do you spell femme fatale?” Afterwards, Klementieff would further tease in her reply, stating, “Mischief: Accepted.”

The Mission: Impossible “femme fatale” role is a major coup for Klementieff, the French-Canadian actress, who’s still best known for a Marvel movie role under prosthetics as Mantis in 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which she reprised in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, 2019’s Avengers: Endgame and will be back for the 2021-scheduled Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. She also recently made waves on the much-discussed “Striking Vipers” episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror, in which she played a female VR video game avatar that, along with a male avatar played by Ludi Lin, becomes utilized by two male buddies for a different kind of gamer activity. Interestingly, unlike her roles as Mantis or the video game avatar, the Mission: Impossible sequels could end up being a major platform in which she appears in a recognizable form. She’ll next be seen in a duo of December-scheduled offerings, a sci-fi anthology movie, titled A.I. Tales, followed by a role in Adam Sandler crime comedy Uncut Gems. (Check out our advance review of that film right here.)

Further Reading: Mission: Impossible 7 – What’s Next for the Franchise?

The Tom Cruise-headlined Mission: Impossible film franchise – launched with the Brian De Palma-directed debut film back in 1996 – has certainly exceeded its initial calling as a big screen reboot of a classic 1960s television series. Indeed, the sixth film, 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout, grossed a franchise-high of $791 million worldwide. The recent escalated success of the near-quarter-of-a-century-old movie series has been largely attributed to McQuarrie, who (having established a rapport with Cruise while writing/directing 2012’s Jack Reacher,) has served as writer and director since 2015’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation; a notion evidenced by studio Paramount’s advance confirmation back in January 2019 that he would write/direct the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible movies.

Mission: Impossible 7 is scheduled to stealthily drop in at theaters on July 23, 2021, followed by Mission: Impossible 8, which is to surreptitiously slip in on August 5, 2022.

Joseph Baxter is a contributor for Den of Geek and Syfy Wire. You can find his work here. Follow him on Twitter @josbaxter.