Tom Cruise’s multi-million dollar franchise Mission Impossible has returned with yet another action-soaked sequel, potentially stealing Star Wars’ thunder.

The fifth movie in the spy series, titled Rogue Nation, which pitches Cruise’s team of agents against a bloodthirsty global ‘syndicate’, has a very similar name to Rogue One, a Star Wars spin-off.

Despite the name clash, the two mega-series will avoid a head-to-head match-up at the box office, with the galactic lightsabers slated for 2016, almost a year after MI:5.

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Cruise, 52, reprises his role as Ethan Hunt this year alongside returning co-stars Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead), joined by Alec Baldwin and new female lead Rebecca Ferguson, a Hollywood newcomer from Sweden.

Ms Ferguson, 31, has had to battle a fear of heights, speed and tight spaces to film alongside Cruise, who does many of his own stunts.

“I had vertigo, I had claustrophobia. I don’t really anymore. You put yourself in these situations where you just do it. I realized I had this bit of me where I could push myself over the edge,” Ms Ferguson told USA Today.