Nicholas Hoult Has Dropped Out of Playing the Villain in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7 and Has Been Replaced by Esai Morales

Nicholas Hoult (X-Men) was set to take on the role of the villain in director Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible 7, but according to a new report, he has dropped out of the project and has been replaced by Esai Morales (Ozark, How To Get Away with Murder).

According to Variety, Hoult ended up leaving due to scheduling conflicts, which is a shame. I was actually looking forward to seeing him take on a villainous role in the film. But, I’m sure that Morales will end up being fine in the role. I’ve just excited about these next two Mission: Impossible films in general.

Tom Cruise will be back in the role of Ethan Hunt, and he will be joined by Ving Rhames, Henry Czerny, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, and Shea Whigham.

We still don’t have any story details to share, but when talking about why this story was being split into two films, McQuarrie explained:

“When we went into making Fallout, I said to Tom, 'I really want to make this more of an emotional journey for [Cruise's character Ethan Hunt].’ Going into this, I said, 'I want to take what we learned from Fallout and apply it to every character in the movie. I want everyone to have an emotional arc. ... I just want the movie to have more feeling across the board.

"We realized we had a movie that was two hours, 40 minutes long. And every scene in it was necessary."

We also know that Hayley Atwell’s character will play major part in the story and has been described as “a destructive force of nature” that will will impact the core team in ways that will "evolve" the franchise.

Paramount Pictures recently pushed back the release date of the seventh installment, which will now debut November 19, 2021. The eighth entry has also been delayed and will hit the big screen on November 4, 2022.