Could M:I4 go the way of the reboot?

What does it take to make a box office hit these days? A good script, great effects, and a star cast. But what's a studio to do when their A-lister is suddenly moving down the alphabet? The answer is retool.

With Mission: Impossible 4 right around the bend, Paramount Pictures is rethinking their decision to rely upon Tom Cruise as their sole lead. While the action and drama star once had the type of bankable name it took to move people into the theaters, his recent film, Knight and Day, failed to do well. In fact, after bringing in a mediocre $61.8 million after a full month of domestic ticket sales, Knight and Day seemed to demonstrate that both its leads (Cruise and Cameron Diaz) are seeing their box office power fading.

In an effort not to fall victim to the same paltry earnings, Paramount is reportedly going to rework the script for Mission: Impossible 4. Written by Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec (Alias), the script was "very good" according to Deadline but now Paramount wants to go back and add a young (read: bankable, well-known, and sexy) operative who Cruise's Ethan Hunt would teach in the way of all things spy.

As long as he (or she) knows how to hold a gun and doesn’t ruin the Mission: Impossible formula we’ve come to know and love, we’ll be happy. But there’s always some concern when a studio hands down the decision to rework a script that’s already pretty good as is. After all, it’s possible that the addition of some no-name operative, but big-name (we’re assuming), young star, could bump up the box office but ruin the entire film in the process (see: every other extended franchise for an example). Fortunately, for us, this rumor is still just a report from an unnamed source at the moment.