Tom Cruise is back for another Mission: Impossible movie.

Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One sees Tom returning as agent Ethan Hunt who is once again off to save the world. He and his IMF team are tasked with their toughest mission yet: to find a fearsome weapon capable of wreaking unspeakable havoc. But they’re not the only ones who are looking for the weapon so it becomes a race around the world to see who can get their hands on it first.

Watch the trailer: 

This being the seventh Mission Impossible film, it hits a bit different according to Tom, saying that it’s a love letter of sorts to the entire franchise.

“It’s absolutely that,” he said. “People who haven't seen the other Missions are going to enjoy this one as a standalone experience. And the people who have seen all the other Missions will have a whole other insight into it. The story we have is very special.” 

Director-producer-writer Christopher McQuarrie elaborated that the film’s story itself has been crafted by emotion.

“Everything that you are seeing in this movie is Tom and I focused on two things simultaneously. There is the action that we owe you because you’re coming to see a Mission: Impossible movie, and there’s the emotion that makes that action worth doing,” he said.

Christopher, who is directing his fourth Mission: Impossible film, also detailed how they came up with the title. “In navigation, ‘dead reckoning’ is the process by which you calculate your course based solely on your last known position.” 

“You’re essentially flying blind. And that becomes quite the metaphor, not only for Ethan, but for several key characters,” he added.

Watch what happened behind-the-scenes: 

Both the actor and the director, who are also producers on the film, talked about how they had to up the ante from the last Mission: Impossible and the decision to split this installment into two parts.

“This is the first time we’ve ever split a Mission: Impossible story over two movies. It’s something we’ve never attempted before because of the complexity of these stories. The scale of these two movies is epic in every sense,” Tom said.

“We were shooting Top Gun: Maverick and we started to talk about Mission. McQ said, ‘We have to make a back-to-back.’ And that really got me, because I’ve never done a back-to-back and I like learning new things. So when he said that it was very much like, ‘Yes, okay…’” the actor recalled.

“But we also knew it would be interesting,” he added. “I’d wanted to build up this franchise to the stage where we are today, where it’s like, ‘Now I feel that we've earned this moment, to be able to blow it out on this scale.’”

Director McQuarrie emphasized, “We often like to say we’re not competing with anybody but ourselves. We’re looking at the last film and figuring how can we outdo that?’

“The sense of scale becomes bigger with each movie and the sense of limitations becomes that much smaller. You just become a little bit more adventurous every time.”

They also confirmed that the second part of Dead Reckoning is scheduled for release next year.

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One stars Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham, Pom Klementieff, Esai Morales, Henry Czerny, Rob Delaney, Cary Elwes, Indira Varma, Mark Gatiss, Charles Parnell, Greg Tarzan Davis, and Frederick Schmidt.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One opens across in Philippine cinemas on July 12.