Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie have once again proven that they are an unbeatable force. With the recent Mission: Impossible in cinemas now, the film has set the standards as high as ever for the action genre. It features some amazing new actors along with the older cast and almost featured an Oscar-winner actress as well.

For one of the key scenes in the film, there was a requirement for a more 80s- 90s actress, since it had to be a flashback and McQuarrie had been thinking of casting Julia Roberts. But the idea was dropped last minute due to various reasons.

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Julia Roberts Was Almost Cast In Mission: Impossible 7

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With each successive Mission: Impossible film, the Tom Cruise starrer franchise has brought along great additions and a stellar cast. Even the latest Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part 1 has new cast members like the illustrious Marvel star Hayley Atwell. And now the director, Christopher McQuarrie has revealed that Julia Roberts too almost made it to the list.

In one of the scenes, Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise's character, looks back at his life, where the villain Gabriel murders his girlfriend Marie. The flashback features Mariela Garriga as Marie. However, it was the Pretty Woman star who was being roped in to play the character since McQuarrie and others wanted a more de-aged actress from the 80s- 90s era.

"We started thinking, 'What would it look like if Tony Scott had shot this, and who would it have been? Who was the ingénue, who was the breakout star in 1989?' And right around then was Mystic Pizza, and I was like, 'Oh my god, Julia Roberts – a then pre-Pretty Woman Julia Roberts." 

Unfortunately, the idea was dropped since it would have been an added expense to de-age the star as well as the small scene wouldn't have been worthy of the Oscar winner.

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Mission: Impossible 7's Box Office Performance So Far

The Mission: Impossible franchise is worth billions of dollars, with each subsequent movie grossing over millions of dollars worldwide. However, the latest Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part 1 has so far been failing expectations and might cost the studios millions of dollars of revenue.

The reason for its failure has largely been the combined effect of Barbie and Oppenheimer releasing just weeks after. Along with the aftermath of Covid, huge production costs, and expensive stunt sequences, the huge popularity and publicity of Barbie and Oppenheimer have added to the woes of the Tom Cruise-starring franchise.

However, it is yet too early to give a definite judgment since there are still possibilities of the movie coming close to the required $600 million mark.

Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part 1 is in theatres now.

Source: Empire