Tom Cruise in Rome: 40 days of open-air film sets and car chases in the city centre.

Hollywood film star Tom Cruise and his film crew are to take over some of central Rome's most prized locations for the filming of a major new movie this spring.

The film, with the provisional title of Lybra, will be filmed over a period of 40 days, starting around mid-March.

The action is due to take place on open-air sets in Piazza Navona, Piazza Venezia, in the cobblestoned streets of the Monti quarter and perhaps also in Piazza di Spagna.

Special effects scenes and car chases are expected to be filmed around central Rome, with the city receiving a handsome fee of €200,000 a day for the use of public land.

Tom Cruise in Rome

This will be the third significant return to Rome for Cruise who filmed scenes for Mission Impossible 3 in the capital in 2005, returning a year later to marry actress Katie Holmes in a sumptuous wedding ceremony at the Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano.

When Cruise arrived in Rome to film the third installment of Mission Impossible he and his entourage stayed in the Hotel Hassler, above the Spanish Steps. Cruise made headlines in Rome at the time for filming the unforgettable speedboat chase on the Tiber, which he did - as usual - without stunt doubles.

There is mystery surrounding the "Lybra" film project, which coincides with the announcement of the cast of the seventh edition of Mission Impossible, which will star Rebecca Ferguson and Hayley Atwell alongside Cruise. The speculation is that Lybra is in fact Mission Impossible 7.

The movie will be the latest in a string of international productions filmed in Rome in recent years, such as Zoolander 2, To Rome with Love by Woody Allen and of course, the James Bond movie Spectre with Daniel Craig in 2014.

Movies filmed in Rome during the previous decade include Angels and Demons with Tom Hanks, The Talented Mr Ripley with Matt Damon, Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts, and Gangs of New York with Leonardo DiCaprio in 2000.