Paramount chooses Jeremy Renner as Tom Cruise's inevitable Mission: Impossible replacement

As part of its efforts to ensure that Mission: Impossible continues to be a viable franchise long after Tom Cruise has assumed his co-pilot’s seat on The Great Space Coaster, Paramount has been looking for someone younger and fresher to potentially take over. Yesterday we reported on several potential young heirs, but today it seems the studio has gone in a slightly, um, different direction by casting Jeremy Renner.

Now, don’t get us wrong: Renner is a very talented actor, and deserving of every bit of upward mobility he’s received since The Hurt Locker made everyone realize that the guy from Senior Trip and S.W.A.T. was capable of doing so much more. But production chief Adam Goodman has said he wanted “a guy who could grow into a leading man in his own right”—so it’s a little odd that they found him in a 39-year-old actor like Renner, who’s done most of his growing already. Still, Goodman believes Renner has “a Daniel Craig quality,” which is probably true. Anyway, all of those other contenders we reported on yesterday have had their scheduled screen tests scrapped—news that probably hit Renner’s Hurt Locker star Anthony Mackie the hardest. Better luck in nine years, dude.