HOLLYWOOD -- From one impossible mission to the next.

For Tom Cruise that means first winning critical commercial kudos for his turn as a hitman in Michael Mann's Collateral, and then tackling the daunting task of nabbing a director for his third Mission: Impossible caper.

Cruise was in Beverly Hills this weekend, touting Collateral to journalists and it would appear, from a critical standpoint anyway, that the mission was a success. Fickle moviegoers won't render their verdict on Cruise's fortunes as a villain until the thriller opens Friday.

Launching Mission: Impossible 3, is proving another matter, and just the latest example of a particular fallacy in Hollywood's never-quite-watertight logic: franchise films, while considered a safe bet, are almost always fraught with financial and creative hardships.

So far, the third installment has lost not one, but two, gifted filmmakers: Fight Club's David Fincher and Narc's Joe Carnahan, who worked on the follow-up for a year before dropping out a few weeks ago -- less than two months before cameras were set to roll.

How can a $100-million-plus film have a mega-star, release date (June '05) and cast (Scarlett Johansson, Carrie-Anne Moss and Kenneth Branagh) and no director?

The answer may be gleaned from an interview in Empire with Frank Darabont, the Oscar-nominated scribe, who has been reworking M:I3's script.

"This is going into a very character-driven and gritty -- much grittier than the first two -- kind of place," says Darabont.

Since both Fincher and Carnahan are known for dark, uncompromising work, one can presume Cruise wants a gritty thriller -- but one that isn't so violent (the studio wants a PG-13) or unrelenting it will alienate fun-loving summertime crowds. Given the choice of being neutered or exiting, both Fincher and Carnahan chose to keep their cojones and walk out on tinseltown's top gun.

Darabont, for one, confidently declared: "I think it's going to be really terrific whoever directs it. The choices so far for director have been very interesting, which just shows where Tom's head is. He wants all of these to be very different, and indeed the first two were, but I think the third is going to just kick the ass of the first two."

Audiences will be able to judge for themselves next June -- if shooting has actually begun by that point, of course.


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