Tom Cruise Snubs Acclaimed Director, Doesn't Offer a Mission: Impossible Movie

Paul Thomas Anderson says he would have jumped at a Mission: Impossible gig with Tom Cruise. He never got the call. And now he suspects that ship has sailed.

PTA wanted in on Mission: Impossible, but the phone never rang

Talking to French outlet Le Figaro, Anderson was asked why Cruise never tapped him to direct an M:I movie. His answer was pretty blunt, and yeah, a little heartbreaking if you like the idea of PTA chaos inside a spy blockbuster.

"I would have loved to, but I never received his phone call. I was very disappointed. I think he's done with Mission: Impossible, so it's not going to happen."

If he's right about Cruise being finished with the franchise, that fantasy pairing is likely dead. Wild bit of inside baseball, considering the series has basically been Hollywood's forever engine.

They crushed it once already

Anderson and Cruise have only teamed up once: 1999's Magnolia, Anderson's ambitious follow-up to 1997's Boogie Nights. Cruise played Frank T.J. Mackey, a swaggering pickup-guru type who preaches to men and then gets hit with a gut-punch reckoning when he visits his dying father, Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), and breaks down. It's still one of Cruise's all-time performances. He won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and landed an Oscar nomination in the same category. Which makes it even stranger that they never found a second act together.

So what's Anderson doing instead?

PTA is mashing up his usual lane — intimate dramas and jet-black comedy — with a full-on action thriller for the first time in his new film, One Battle After Another. Here's the rundown:

• Story: Leonardo DiCaprio plays a former revolutionary who sets out to rescue his daughter from a ghost out of his past.
• Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti.
• Creative: Written and directed by Anderson, loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland.
• Early word: Critics are calling it some of the best work of Anderson's career, and awards folks already have it circled as a major 2026 Oscars contender.
• Release: In theaters September 26, 2025.

So no IMF mission for PTA, but if One Battle After Another is as strong as the buzz suggests, he may not need to borrow anyone else's franchise fireworks anyway.