'Mission: Impossible 5' Release Date Delay? Production Halted as Ending Rewritten

Ethan Hunt finds himself in another deadly assignment in "Mission: Impossible 5" – a mission so impossible to successfully complete that its creators decided to rewrite the movie's ending.

The production on the fifth installment of the series had to be stopped for a week to allow writers to rework the ending of the Tom Cruise starrer.

Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie were reportedly given the extra time to work out a new and improved finale with a still unidentified writer, who was reportedly neither paid nor credited in the movie.

"Chris, Tom, and a third person wanted to take a minute and get from what they thought was a good place to a more perfect place," a source said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The entertainment portal claimed that it's unusual and costly for a big-budget film to stop in the middle of production, especially one with a release date about five months away.

In another report, the Entertainment Weekly clarified that the production has already resumed filming the revised ending in London following a week-long hiatus.

The publication noted that the short delay was not expected to impact on the rest of the film's production and that the movie is still set to be released this summer.

One high-level executive, according to The Hollywood Reporter, joked that M:I5 is not in any way seriously behind schedule, saying, "Are you kidding? We made World War Z."

Paramount Pictures suffered more serious third-act problems with the Marc Foster-directed "World War Z," which was released in 2013.

Starring Brad Pitt, the zombie apocalypse movie was shut down, its final third part reconceived, and its release date pushed back several times before ultimately becoming a hit when it finally reached theaters.

The source said if the studio had really been concerned, it would not have moved up the release date of "Mission: Impossible 5" from Christmas to July 31.

The Hollywood Reporter's story said the alterations on the script of "Mission: Impossible 5" were not meant to be extensive, with Paramount only wanting to perfect what was already considered a good ending by the studio.

It had been four years since "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol," the last film in the franchise, set a new box office records for the franchise in 2011. It earned nearly $650 million globally, a franchise best.

In that film, Cruise was tasked to scale the world's tallest building. Finding a way to top a sequence like that is surely no easy task, industry insiders said.