At the centrepiece of every Mission: Impossible instalment is a death-defying spectacle personally undertaken by the man behind IMF agent Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise. In an interview with Empire conducted last year, the 60-year-old action star revealed his latest stunt featured in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I is the “single most dangerous” he’s ever undertaken – a claim seconded by franchise director Christopher McQuarrie – topping the time he scaled the Burj Khalifa, clung to the side of a plane in motion, free soloed without a harness, and even that High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) jump.
While riding a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff might sound milquetoast after decades of being exposed to recreations of essentially the same thing in cinema, when Cruise breaks down the logistics behind the act, you come to realise the real deal is a completely different ball game. This particular instance required months of training and weeks of planning.
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“If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp,” explained Tom Cruise.
“The helicopter [filming the stunt] was a problem, because I didn’t want to be hammering down that ramp at top speed and get hit by a stone. Or if I departed in a weird way, we didn’t know what was going to happen with the bike.”
Cruise added: “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. If I do, that’s not going to end well.”
From drilling the stunt’s individual components – i.e. 500 skydives, 13,000 motocross jumps – to running simulations of the physics and building all-new cameras to capture the moment, suffice it to say, nobody half-assed a damn thing this time around. The dedication was very real.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I will be released here in Australia come July 13th of 2023 — go behind the scenes of the stunt in question above.
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Now read everything you need to know about Mission: Impossible 7 here.
