Ilsa Faust could return to the Mission: Impossible franchise, as Rebecca Ferguson has teased her interest and how it can happen. After joining the action franchise with Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Ferguson became one of the highlights of the series and a regular returnee for the sequels. She even appeared to be poised as a potential replacement to Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt if he ever stopped playing the IMF agent. The expectations about her future involvement changed with Ilsa Faust’s death in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and the very permanent way that it transpires.
The popularity of Ilsa and Ferguson’s performance as her led to plenty of petitions and theories that the former MI6 agent could still be alive. These ideas have quite definitively been shut down, with Ilsa’s death playing too big of a role in the larger franchise narrative and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning‘s ending to be reversed. This seemingly ruled out the chance that audiences would see Ferguson return to the franchise. Ilsa’s fate might already be determined, but new comments from the actress tease that her story could still continue in an exciting fashion.
7 Mission Impossible 7 Clues That Foreshadowed The Movie’s Big Death
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One features a shocking character death, but there are clues along the way that hints at their fate.
Rebecca Ferguson Isn’t Ruling Out A Mission: Impossible Return After Dead Reckoning
Following Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Rebecca Ferguson did not immediately open up about her thoughts on Ilsa’s death and the possibility of her coming back. Director Christopher McQuarrie shot down the notion that the death would be retconned in Mission: Impossible 8, but how the actress felt about it was unclear. Rebecca Ferguson responded to Ilsa’s Dead Reckoning death and the return theories in an interview, explaining that her contract with the Mission: Impossible franchise was over. She also detailed how difficult the films are to make and how much more free time she has without the series.
The bulk of Ferguson’s response to Ilsa’s fate can be seen as her quite clearly saying that she is done with Mission: Impossible movies and arguably even happy to be in that position. However, the actress also left the door open for a return, ending the response by saying, “But that’s the thing you never know, right?,” when pressed about coming back. It would be much easier for Ferguson to slam the door shut on Ilsa coming back in future installments to avoid more questions in the future, especially if she had no interest in returning.
Ferguson’s Comments Tease How Ilsa Faust Can Come Back Despite Her Death
Rebecca Ferguson’s explanation for why she has left the Mission: Impossible franchise (for now) is quite eye-opening. She shared where she wanted Ilsa’s story to go, revealing she did not entirely agree with the direction her character was heading. She said, “I want her to go rogue. I’m interested in the dark side. I don’t want a team member. It’s not interesting to me and I felt like that’s where we were heading.” With the franchise making Ilsa a main member of Ethan’s team, it appears Ferguson was on board with Ilsa’s death, even if she still loved the character.
That could be why Ferguson decided to leave the door open to play Ilsa Faust again and suggest a possible path for her return. She did not get too specific about what the future could hold, but her ideas for more Ilsa stories are intriguing. The best part is that it would not necessarily require undoing Ilsa Faust’s death from Dead Reckoning. The only reason for the franchise to bring Ilsa back from the dead would be so she and Ethan could interact more, but Ferguson’s comments suggest that she’d only return to explore Ilsa’s life as a rogue agent.
An Ilsa Faust Mission: Impossible Spinoff Can Fulfill Ferguson’s Desires
If Rebecca Ferguson is serious about exploring Ilsa Faust’s life as a rogue agent, the best thing Mission: Impossible could do is make a prequel spinoff centered around her. The franchise has already made this a possibility by having Ilsa be disavowed in previous movies, leaving her on her own. The films have not explored Ilsa’s life as a rogue agent with that much depth either. This leaves the franchise with a natural starting point when it comes to finding an Ilsa Faust story that could realistically and comfortably fit in between her movie appearances.
An Ilsa Faust spinoff movie could potentially explore everything from her life before Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation to her time as a rogue agent between Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Dead Reckoning. Any of these options would certainly fulfill Ferguson’s desire to have Ilsa be explored as a lone wolf instead of a team member. While that could also be achieved by reversing Ilsa’s death and following her after Dead Reckoning, this would only create more questions about if she’d return to the main Mission: Impossible franchise and cheapen the original death scene. A prequel is simpler and better.
