Tom Cruise has done the impossible: resurrected theaters and completed mind-blowing stunts.
The certified movie star leads Christopher McQuarrie‘s “Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part I,” kicking off the two-part finale to the decades-long franchise. Cruise reprises his role of undercover CIA agent Ethan Hunt in the seventh film, soon to be followed by “Mission: Impossible 8” in June 2024. Cruise has played Ethan for close to 30 years since the films began in 1996 with Brian De Palma’s feature.
Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, and Vanessa Kirby are back in their respective roles, while new cast members include Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff.
“Dead Reckoning” will exclusively have a theatrical release in part due to Cruise’s urging. Production for “Dead Reckoning Part I” was repeatedly halted by the COVID-19 pandemic but eventually wrapped in September of 2021 with the budget ballooning to upwards of $290 million. Test screenings began in March 2023.
Paramount Global president Bob Bakish called the film “insane” and “a complete thrill ride,” praising lead star Cruise’s dedication to his death-defying stunts including a motorcycle sequence.
“I had about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don’t want to get tangled in the bike,” Cruise detailed of the intense stuntwork. “If I do, that’s not going to end well.”
A 70-ton train is also “wrecked” onscreen in an action sequence that director McQuarrie called the “biggest challenge” of his career.
“At the start of this movie, I said to Tom, ‘What do you want to do?’” McQuarrie shared. “He said, ‘I want to drive a motorcycle off of a cliff. What do you want to do?’ And I said, ‘I want to wreck a train.’ We’re enormous fans of Buster Keaton, John Frankenheimer, David Lean, all of these filmmakers who at one time or another had a fabulous train wreck. I thought, ‘I’ve earned that, I want to wreck one too.’ I think the energy that went into developing it, designing that, building it, and then making a sequence that justified its existence was probably the biggest challenge of my entire life.”
“Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part I” premieres July 12 in theaters. Check out the trailer below.
