Filming on the seventh instalment in the Mission: Impossible franchise will reportedly resume in September after a six-month shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The movie, which sees Tom Cruise reprise his role as action hero Ethan Hunt, started shooting some scenes in Surrey in March but production was abruptly halted as the UK entered lockdown.

Now star Simon Pegg, aka techie Benji Dunn, has confirmed that "the plan" is to get going again in September with location filming first.

"That will begin with the outdoor stuff," he told Variety. "That feels fairly doable, and obviously there will be precautions put in place."

As for the challenges of filming in a safe manner, Pegg added: "People that are involved in any close proximity stuff, it will have to be determined that they're safe to do that. I don't know what the testing situation is, how that works, or whether they'll be able to be tested regularly."

The seventh film is being shot back to back with the eighth for scheduled releases of November 2021 and November 2022 respectively.