Tom Cruise shares ten minutes of behind-the-scenes stunts from the latest ‘Mission Impossible’ movie
‘Mission Impossible’ fans got a peak behind the scenes of the latest film in the franchise due out summer 2023 of Tom Cruise performing death-defying stunt.
Tom Cruise is known for his dedication to performing his own stunts and even at 60 years old, he hasn’t slowed down in taking on ever greater challenges. “This is far and away the most dangerous thing we have ever attempted,” the lead of the ‘Mission Impossible’ franchise says in a voiceover for a recently released behind-the-scenes featurette.
His latest death-defying stunt took years of preparation and the actor who plays the role of Ethan Hunt was one hundred percent hands-on in getting himself and the crew ready to pull it off. Christopher McQuarrie, the director of ‘Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One’ said the Top Gun actor put together a “master plan” coordinating all the experts involved from varying disciplines “to make this whole thing happen.”
The stunt involves the daredevil actor jumping a motorcycle off a ramp going over a massive cliff in Norway and then base jumping into a “rock bowl with walls all around him” which he needs to fly out of. Besides being something that Cruise claims he has wanted to do since he was a little kid, “it all comes down to one thing,” says the actor, “the audience.”
How Tom Cruise prepared for the latest ‘Mission Impossible’ stunt
The high-risk stunt required absolute precision, McQuarrie explains that the team developed multiple models of ramps and angles so that they could “consistently predict where Tom would be in three-dimensional space.” In order to help in that endeavor, they built a replicate ramp in an English quarry and filled it with cardboard boxes so that the actor could simulate the jump.
Cruise had to prepare himself as well to be able to handle the motorcycle properly on the ramp and perform the base jump. “You train and drill every little aspect over and over and over again,” the Maverick said.
This meant practicing jumps on a motocross track the team built where he ended up doing over 13,000 motocross jumps over 70- to 80-foot long tabletops. As well as 30 skydives a day. “It came to a point where he was just a machine. I mean over 500 skydives,” said second unit director and stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood.
It also required the actor to become at one with the bike. Since he didn’t have a speedometer to look at on the motorcycle, Cruise had to judge his speed by the sound and feel of the bike.
The seventh installment in the ‘Mission Impossible’ franchise is scheduled for release 14 July 2023. As the name suggests, ‘Dead Reckoning Part One’, there will be a sequel. Fortunately, fans won’t have to wait as long as they did for the latest movie with an expected theater debut for ‘Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two’ targeted for 28 June 2024.