Brad Bird made his live-action directorial debut in a big way with last years Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, delivering a crowd pleasing flick that has helped re-invigorate the franchise.
The staging of Tom Cruise‘s death defying stunts were visually impressive, and the film’s tone captured the essence of a classic Mission: Impossible, where no team member was a rat, and there was no unnecessary plot twist; just a good old fashion romp that never lost sight of the mission and offered plenty of narrative surprises.
With it’s box-office and critical success, the studio was quick to start plans for a fifth movie, but the question remains whether director Brad Bird will return if given the chance.
During an interview with Crave Online, Brad Bird seemed open to returning, but commented that the franchise has seen a new director offer a different take for each installment:
No, I think that one of the things that’s fun about the series is that they always pull in a different director and try to get a different kind of take on the premise. I’d probably be open to looking at it, but I think that part of one of the successes of the franchises is that they’re always reassessing it with a new director.
While a new vision is always important, Brad’s direction gave the film a consitent tone, and the collaboration of all the creative elements made for an extremely well crafted flick. That said, the director revealed that they filmed much of Ghost Protocol with the assumption that Ethan Hunt’s wife (Michelle Monaghan) had died at the end of Mission: Impossible III.
Well, we were well into the film thinking that she had been killed, and filmed quite a bit of the film thinking that she wasn’t around, and we just kept thinking that that kind of cast the previous movie in a negative light because it’s kind of like all that stuff that he went through to keep her alive in the last one didn’t ultimately amount to anything.
However it turns out that Simon Pegg was in favor of keeping Monaghan’s character alive, using Alien 3 as his reasoning.
Bird explained:
Simon Pegg mentioned that it was kind of like the feeling that you had about Aliens after seeing Alien 3, where she goes through unbelievable hell to save a couple of people, and then both of them died before the third movie.
While the ending did seem somewhat of an after thought, it imbued the character of Ethan Hunt with greater strength and guarantees that any continued installment won’t go down the path of revenge. Brad Bird’s creative influence helped shape Ghost Protocol into a sharply witted and well paced action thriller, and it’s hoped that Bird’s sensibilities are brought on board once more to showcase his increasing talents which would make Mission: Impossible 5 all the more anticipated.
via: Collider
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