‘Top Gun: Maverick’ And ‘M:I 7’ Are Getting Pushed Back By The Pandemic (Again) But, Worst Of All, So Is ‘Jackass Forever’

The hits (to the nuts) keep coming.

Paramount Pictures has pushed back the release dates for two already-delayed Tom Cruise movies, Top Gun: Maverick and Mission: Impossible 7, due to the pandemic. The Top Gun sequel moves from November 19, 2021, to May 27, 2022, while the seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise, which was supposed to come out on that May 27th, will now be released on September 30, 2022. It gets worse:

The studio has also pushed back Jackass Forever, which moves to Feb. 4, 2022, departing an Oct. 22, 2021 date.

The Jackass movies are some of my favorite theater experiences in my life, so while I understand the reason for the delay (wear a mask and get vaccinated, folks), me and the boys are sad that we have to wait another four months to watch Johnny Knoxville get speared by a bull. Especially with Venom: Let There Be Carnage delayed, too.

While studios such as Warner Bros. and Disney have experimented with putting tentpoles on streaming services and in theaters day-and-date, Paramount has kept many of its big titles, such as A Quiet Place Part II, for theatrical only. It did sell off The Tomorrow War to Amazon and put Mark Wahlberg’s Infinite on Paramount+, but it has been expected that Top Gun and Mission would remain theatrical only, as Cruise is a strong proponent of the theatrical experience and because of the hefty budgets of these movies.

The one positive from all this: you can take your sweetie to Jackass Forever on Valentine’s Day.

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(Via the Hollywood Reporter)