Christopher McQuarrie (born 12 June 1968) is an American Academy Award-winning screenwriter, director and producer. He has written and directed Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning and will direct, write and produce Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning.
Christopher McQuarrie also rewrote the script for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol though he was uncredited for his work.
Career[]
Film[]
His first feature film is Public Access (1993) for which he won the Grand Jury Prize for his screenplay at the Sundance Film Festival. His next film is The Usual Suspects (1995), for which he received an Academy Award, a BAFTA Film Award, an Independent Spirit Award and an Edgar Award for the screenplay. In 2000 he made his directorial debut in The Way of the Gun, where he also served as a writer. The film did't do well and McQuarrie was no involved in any projects for 8 years.
In 2008 he returned to showbusiness as a writer and producer in Valkyrie, which was his first collaboration with Tom Cruise. Then he wrote the screenplay for The Tourist (2010). In 2012 he returned as director in the novel adaptation Jack Reacher, where he also served as a writer. After that he wrote the screenplay of Jack the Giant Slayer. Then he wrote the screenplay of an other novel adaptation with Tom Cruise, Edge of Tomorrow for which he received a Hugo and a Saturn Award nomination.
In 2015 he made his official debut in the Mission: Impossible film series as writer and director in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. In 2016 he produced Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. With the screenplay of The Mummy, he reached a low point in his career in 2017 with a score of 15% on Rotten Tomatoes and he received a Golden Raspberry Award nomination. Just a year after, in 2018 he wrote, directed and produced Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of his career with 97% and he also received a Saturn Award nomination. In 2022 he wrote the screenplay and produced Top Gun: Maverick, which became the highest grossing film of his career with almost making 1.5 billion dollars. He received two Academy Award nominations, a Golden Globe nomination and a WGA Award nomination for both writing and producing. In 2023 he wrote, directed and produced Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, for which he was nominated for a Saturn Award. He is currently working on Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning as a writer, director and producer.
Uncredited work[]
He did script revisions in films including Batman & Robin, X-Men, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, World War Z and Rogue One.
He wrote the original script of The Wolverine, which has been revised.
Television[]
As his first television credit, he wrote the story of S2E6 of NYPD Blue: "The Final Adjustment" in 1994. In 1997 he wrote a movie for TV called, The Underground. He was the creator and executive producer of Persons Unknown, he the first episode: "Pilot" in 2010. He serves as executive producer of the 2022 series, Reacher.
Trivia[]
- Christopher McQuarrie received an Academy Award for The Usual Suspects in the category of Best Original Screenplay.
- Christopher McQuarrie is the only Mission: Impossible director to direct more than one movie.
- Christopher McQuarrie previously worked with Tom Cruise on Valkyrie, Jack Reacher and Edge of Tomorrow.
- Christopher McQuarrie worked again with Tom Cruise on Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, The Mummy, and Top Gun Maverick.
- Christopher McQuarrie was nominated for two Saturn Awards in the category of Best Writing for his work in the franchise. One for Mission: Impossible – Fallout and one for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.