Tom Cruise (Knight and Day) and Jeremy Renner (The Avengers) are currently filming the latest installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise in Dubai. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, a film which has been rumored to act as a passing of the torch from Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character to Renner’s new IMF agent.

Jeremy Renner recently spoke with MTV, and revealed that he could in-fact be taking over for the franchise’s star, Tom Cruise.

Renner said,

“It’s a franchise to potentially take over. I can’t predict the future and what they want, but that’s certainly the idea.”

Renner didn’t divulge whether or not there’s a true “passing of the torch” between Ethan Hunt and his character in the film, or if that transition will be addressed in another future installment:

“I can’t really go into the details of the script, because that’s still evolving. It’s Tom’s baby. He’s the engine behind the thing. What happens after that, we’ll see.”

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is being directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles) and stars Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner, Josh Holloway, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Vladimir Mashkov, Michael Nyqvist, Léa Seydoux and Anil Kapoor.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is slated to hit theaters on December 16th, 2011.