Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) is currently hard at work filming alongside Tom Cruise and the rest of the IMF alumni on Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and further to rumours from a while back that M:I-4 was going to be a spring-board for some new young buck to take over the franchise, it now looks as though Renner will be that buck.
Renner is around a decade younger than Cruise, so that would seem to be a good fit – someone new and younger without casting Zac Efron – and there is the added benefit to the studio of seeing from the rushes during filming how Renner works in the role, making it much less of a gamble to give him the lead in future franchise entries.
Renner must be thanking Kathryn Bigelow every day of his life for giving him the lead in The Hurt Locker. Although he had plenty of very good roles before that, it really brought him to the attention of producers and with Mission: Impossible, The Town and The Avengers now to his credit, the future looks bright for him indeed.
Renner was a little vague and non-committal in this interview with MTV, however he did confirm that the intention is to use this M:I film to transition to him as the future star, even if he couldn’t be specific on script details.
What do you think? Is Renner a good fit for Mission: Impossible? Is he over-committing himself, or simply grabbing top-drawer opportunities with both hands?
