Next ‘Mission: Impossible’ Delayed a Year as Actors Strike Drags On  

Tom Cruise attends the premiere of "Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning - Part One" at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall, July 10, 2023, in New York. (AP)
Tom Cruise attends the premiere of "Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning - Part One" at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall, July 10, 2023, in New York. (AP)
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Next ‘Mission: Impossible’ Delayed a Year as Actors Strike Drags On  

Tom Cruise attends the premiere of "Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning - Part One" at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall, July 10, 2023, in New York. (AP)
Tom Cruise attends the premiere of "Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning - Part One" at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall, July 10, 2023, in New York. (AP)

The eighth installment of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise has been postponed a year, signaling a new wave of release schedule juggling for Hollywood studios as the actors strike surpasses three months of work stoppage.

Paramount Pictures on Monday shifted the release date of the next “Mission: Impossible” from June 28 to May 23, 2025. Production on the follow-up to Christopher McQuarrie's “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” was paused in July while Tom Cruise and company embarked on an international promotion blitz for “Dead Reckoning.” (The sequel had been titled “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two” but is now simply listed currently as “Mission: Impossible.”)

“Dead Reckoning” ultimately grossed $567.5 million worldwide, falling shy of 2018 installment “Fallout” ($791.7 million globally) and the heady highs of Cruise's summer 2022 blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick” ($1.5 billion). The 163-minute-long action thriller, drew some of the best reviews of the 27-year-old movie franchise, but was quickly eclipsed by the box-office juggernauts of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.”

As Hollywood's labor turmoil has continued, it's increasingly upended release plans not just for movies this fall that want to wait until their stars can promote them (like “Dune: Part Two,” postponed to March), but some of next year's top big-screen attractions.

A string of Marvel movies have previously shifted back, as did the third “Venom” film. “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse” has been delayed indefinitely after being dated for March 2024.

Paramount also announced Monday that “A Quiet Place: Day One,” a prequel to the post-apocalyptic horror series starring Lupita Nyong’o, will have its release pushed from March to when “Dead Reckoning” had been scheduled to open, on June 28.

Negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the studios are scheduled to resume Tuesday.



In Their 80s, These South Korean Women Learned Reading and Rap

Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Suni and the Seven Princesses, adjusts her hat in a mirror during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, "Hangeul Week" at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Suni and the Seven Princesses, adjusts her hat in a mirror during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, "Hangeul Week" at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
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In Their 80s, These South Korean Women Learned Reading and Rap

Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Suni and the Seven Princesses, adjusts her hat in a mirror during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, "Hangeul Week" at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Suni and the Seven Princesses, adjusts her hat in a mirror during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, "Hangeul Week" at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Wearing an oversized bucket hat, silver chains and a black Miu Miu shirt, 82-year-old Park Jeom-sun gesticulates, her voice rising and falling with staccato lines about growing chili peppers, cucumbers and eggplants.
Park, nicknamed Suni, was flanked by seven longtime friends who repeated her moves and her lines. Together, they're Suni and the Seven Princesses, South Korea 's latest octogenarian sensation. With an average age of 85, they're probably the oldest rap group in the country, The Associated Press said.
Born at a time when women were often marginalized in education, Park and her friends were among a group of older adults learning how to read and write the Korean alphabet, hangeul, at a community center in their farming village in South Korea’s rural southeast.
They were having so much fun that they started dabbling with poetry. They began writing and performing rap in summer last year.
Suni and the Seven Princesses enjoy nationwide fame, appearing in commercials and going viral on social media. South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo sent them a congratulatory message last month on their first anniversary, praising their passion for learning.
At a road near their community center in Chilgok on Thursday, Park and her friends were rehearsing for a performance Friday evening in the capital, Seoul, where they were invited to open an event celebrating hangeul heritage.
“Picking chili peppers at the pepper field, picking cucumbers at the cucumber field, picking eggplants at the eggplant field, picking zucchini at the zucchini field!” the group rapped along with Park. "We’re back home now and it feels so good!”
Park said the group usually practices two or three times a week, more if they're preparing for a show.
On Friday, hundreds of people applauded and cheered, and then the group lined up for a photo with South Korean Culture Minister Yu In Chon.
Park talked about the joy of learning to read, saying she can now “go to the bank, ride the bus and go anywhere” she wants without someone helping her.
“During and after the Korean War, I couldn’t study because of the social atmosphere, but I started learning hangeul in 2016,” Park said, referring to the devastating war between North and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. “Being introduced to rap while learning hangeul has made me feel better, and I thought it would help me stay healthy and avoid dementia.”
Kang Hye-eun, Park’s 29-year-old granddaughter and a local healthcare worker who helps older adults, said she was proud to see her grandmother on television and in viral videos.
“It’s amazing that she got to know hangeul like this and has started to rap,” she said.