Mission: Impossible 5 realizes it needs an ending, halts production

Cruise smiled. Finally, an opportunity to really get involved with this picture. The Maldives could wait—after all, he owned most of them. He began to visualize various endings—Cruise is a great visualizer, having often been instructed by the Church of Scientology to visualize himself giving them money—and wrote them down. Maybe Ethan Hunt confronts the villain while they both race through Namibia on the backs of rabid giraffes! Perhaps Simon Pegg’s character could get hit by an exploding blimp, fueling Hunt’s revenge! Or, no, it’s obvious: a bomb made entirely of airline tickets—but you’re seated in coach. These were all gold, he realized.

He wished Katie Holmes were still around to bounce ideas off of. “Hey Holmeskillet!” he’d yell, having a good laugh as she called yet another lawyer for reasons he never quite understood. Instead, he phoned producers, who quickly informed him that director Christopher McQuarrie and an unnamed writer friend were reworking the ending, and that production was merely halted for a week or so while they improved the finale of the film. They assured him that the studio wouldn’t have moved the release date up five months, from Christmas to July, if it wasn’t already certain things were going well.

“But what about the holographic memo you sent me via my wristwatch?”, Cruise said. “Um, Tom, there’s no such invention,” a worried producer replied. Cruise hung up the phone and smiled. That’s what they think.