In amongst all the franchises, sequels and universe that are taking of Hollywood right now, one franchise that has continued to change and evolve is the Mission: Impossible series. Now running for over two decades, the series has become one of the biggest in the market in that time.

After the runaway successes of both Ghost Protocol ($694.7 million worldwide) and Rogue Nation ($682.7million), a sixth film was always an inevitability and the film is currently in production in Paris with writer/director Christopher McQuarrie the first director to return for a sequel throughout the series. But with so many other action franchises out there, it was important to the director to keep things fresh and mix it up a little.

Speaking to Scriptnotes (via The Playlist), McQuarrie said it was important to keep the audience guessing rather than producing more of the same. He said:

“You know, you worry all the time. Am I taking this in a way that it can’t go? And we had a big conversation about tone. Because [‘Ghost Protocol‘ director] Brad Bird really changed the tone of the franchise and ‘Rogue Nation’ embraced that tone completely… At the beginning of this I said to Tom, ‘I don’t think we can do that three in a row. I think now it’s going to become cute. I think we need to take it another direction still.’ And we did. But now we find ourselves going, you know, are we going where Bond went where Bond became — serious. It’s another kind of tone. Which, by the way, has not hurt their bottom line at all. They’ve really found their place. But we can’t go there. We were sort of laughing because we were looking at ‘Rogue Nation’ and saying, ‘Well thanks, Bond, for not doing that anymore, so we’ll do it.’ Now we’re looking at it and going, ‘But we can’t keep doing that.’ We suddenly hit that same wall and understood why Bond went the way they did. And we’re at this kind of emotional crossroads with the franchise saying well how dramatic can you take Mission? It’s not going to a dark place. It’s going to a more emotionally dramatic place.”

Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, with Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris and Alec Baldwin reprising their roles from Rogue Nation. Newcomers include Henry Cavill (Justice League), Vanessa Kirby (The Crown) and Angela Bassett (Black Panther). Jeremy Renner is the notable absentee due to his commitments on Avengers: Infinity War and its sequel.

Mission: Impossible 6 opens on July 27th, 2018.