The rumours on this one started just as the weekend hit, but now the official word has come down: the latest Mission: Impossible film has found its villain, and his name is Michael Nyqvist.
The Swedish actor is going from crusading activist journalist to scheming bad guy for the film, after rising to fame starring opposite Noomi Rapace in the Millennium Trilogy films -The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.
Rapace has already been snapped up by Hollywood to play a character in Sherlock Holmes 2, and it was only a matter of time before Nyqvist followed her.
Sadly we can’t tell you what Nyqvist’s diabolical, world-threatening plot will be, since the latest instalment of the M franchise hasn’t announced what the script, written by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec, will actually be about.
Still, we do know that Cruise will be joined by Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Russian actor Vladimir Mashkov and returning faces Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames. Oh, and, y'know, Tom Cruise.
With Brad Bird at the helm, JJ Abrams producing (and installing kill chips in the cast/crew’s heads to stop anyone spilling details) and Paramount writing the cheques, the new, currently untitled film will shoot in Vancouver, Prague (shades of the first movie, there), Dubai and the US. And it already has a release date set for December 16, 2011.