In a movie that will shock absolutely no one, Tom Cruise has officially signed on to star in and produce Mission: Impossible 5 movie. The news has been confirmed by Paramount Pictures and co-financier Skydance Productions.

No writer or director have been announced for the project as of yet, but late last year there was speculation that Christopher McQuarrie, the Oscar-winning writer of The Usual Suspects who also wrote and directed the surprisingly good Jack Reacher starring Cruise that was released back in December, would be taking the big job of directing the latest big screen adventure of Cruise’s globe-trotting superspy Ethan Hunt. The series is the second longest-running film franchise based on a television series, Star Trek naturally being the first.

Since winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his craftily-constructed heist thriller The Usual Suspects, Christopher McQuarrie has been one of Hollywood’s premiere go-to guys for injecting some extra class and intelligence into one of their E-ticket escapades. In addition to helping shape the shooting script for the original X-Men (though David Hayter ended up with sole screen credit), McQuarrie has also written films like Valkyrie, The Tourist, and next year’s The Wolverine. Between writing jobs he’s even directed a few films of his own, including the underrated 2000 action drama The Way of the Gun and the upcoming Jack Reacher, an adaptation of the Lee Child novel One Shot. Over the years he’s maintained a healthy working relationship with Tom Cruise, his Jack Reacher star, and even made credited or uncredited contributions to several of the Cruise’s recent projects such as last year’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and the currently-in-production sci-fi thriller All You Need is Kill. That relationship may have just napped McQuarrie his biggest directing assignment yet.

According to Mike Fleming, Jr. over at Deadline, Paramount Pictures and Skydance Entertainment are eyeing McQuarrie for the coveted assignment of directing the fifth Mission: Impossible movie, which is presently in the embryonic stages of development.

It may be a while before we see Mission: Impossible 5 head into production, but we will see Tom Cruise emulate the Ethan Hunt character through different films. But that doesn’t mean that the actor hasn’t stopped thinking about how to extend the franchise hit, and since Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol was a hit, there wasn’t any doubt that a fifth film was on the way.

Considering no one has been hired to write the script and Ghost Protocol director Brad Bird said that it was unlikely he would return to direct for a second time, production for Mission: Impossible 5 has stalled. However, each film had a different director, and each had a different take on the threat facing Agent Hunt, so don’t be surprised to hear that someone other than Bird will direct the film.

Every classic movie star has their calling card: Marilyn Monroe had her skirt blown up, John Wayne swaggered, and Paul Newman had his magical baby blues.

Tom Cruise, on the other hand, just runs. Sure he has that thousand-watt “It’s good to be Cruise” smile but he doesn’t use it on screen as much these days. Time Magazine’s video editor Valerie Lapinski has assembled a montage of some of the world’s most famous Scientologist’s best on-screen running scenes.

You can watch it here below.

A new clip from the upcoming Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol has been released. You can watch it here below.

It’s basically a chase scene, and those are a dime a dozen these days, but this one has an interesting hook. The scene involves Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) pursuing an unknown person on foot and in a car while a sandstorm rages. With his vision obscured by the storm Hunt has to rely on a tracking device to find his quarry, which adds a measure of suspense to the chase. I also like that Michael Giacchino, who scored the previous MI flick, is back on composer duty.