Mission Impossible 7 director talks about releasing Tom Cruise film after Covid shutdowns

re are, as a rule, only so many places you can go as an action movie after leaving Tom Cruise clinging to side of an Airbus A400M and flinging him out a cargo plane at 25,000 feet. But in kinetic, helong world of "Mission: Impossible," pressure to keep upping ante — like films' always-running star — never stops.

"Every time we finish a movie, first thing Tom says to me is: We can do better," says Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie, writer-director of 2015's "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation" and 2018 franchise high point, "Mission: Impossible – Fallout," was working with Cruise on "Top Gun: Maverick " (which McQuarrie co-wrote and co-produced) when y started talking about ir ambitions for next iteration of "Mission: Impossible."

ir plan was to make t one but two sequels: Back-to-back blockbusters that would feature even bigger stunts — Cruise envisioned a motorcycle jump-slash-skydive — and a massive train sequence that McQuarrie pined to realize. hey experience on "Maverick," a pop-culture juggernaut that grossed nearly $1.5 billion worldwide, only furr ratcheted up ir aspirations.

"'Top Gun: Maverick' really taught us a lot in terms of character dynamics and emotional payoff of movie overall," McQuarrie said in a recent interview. "To be making movies on this scale, you really need to think about, more than anything, feeling that audience is left with going away."

A year after box-office dominance of "Maverick", McQuarrie and Cruise are back with ar high-flying spectacle of daring-do. Similar to "Maverick," "Mission: Impossible – De Reckoning Part One" is a state-of--art action extravaganza of old-school technique, me with star power, practical effects and stunt work designed to prompt exclamations of "He did what?"
It was also ir most nearly impossible mission yet – and t just because of, according to Paramount Pictures, 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps that Cruise did in preparation for his climactic stunt. "De Reckoning" was just days away from beginning production in Venice when COVID-19 cases began skyrocketing in Italy, an early epicenter.

"Mission: Impossible" was one of first major productions to be shut down by pandemic. Months later, Cruise and "De Reckoning" – a globe-trotting $290 million movie so logistically complicated that it prompted controversy for initial plans to blow up a century-old bridge in Poland – led an industry-wide effort to get movie business back on line during pandemic. An alrey high-stress production became even more tense. In December 2020, an audio recording leaked of Cruise yelling at two crew members for t obeying COVID-19 protocols.

"We are gold standard," Cruise said in recording. "y're back re in Hollywood making movies right w because of us. Because y believe in us and what we're doing." re were numerous delays and pivots along way. But McQuarrie says he never thought "De Reckoning" wouldn't get finished. "We just kept moving forward because if you stopped, if you were trying to find end of tunnel, you would just reach a place of such despair," says McQuarrie.

McQuarrie and Cruise first collaborated on 2008 Hitler assassination drama "Valkyrie." McQuarrie, famed screenwriter of " Usual Suspects," was n in proverbial movie jail for his poorly received directorial debut, " Way of Gun." "When I met Tom in 2006, I h t directed a film in seven years," McQuarrie says. "I wouldn't direct a film again for ar five years. I h really put any ambitions I h to direct out of my mind. I certainly never imagined being considered an action director, let alone directing four action films."

"In 'De Reckoning,' you're seeing ghosts of all movies that I was never allowed to make," he ds.
Unlikely as it may be, McQuarrie (who's also directing alrey-shooting part two of "De Reckoning") has emerged as architect of one of most visceral action franchises.

In "De Reckoning," Ethan Hunt faces off with a rogue artificial intelligence, a prescient and well-suited antagonist for a movie universe built less on CGI than practical effects. McQuarrie told Cruise he wanted to wanted to take "Mission: Impossible" beyond threat of a terrorist getting hold of a dely weapon.

"Ar lesson we took from 'Top Gun' was: What is audience bringing to movie? 'Top Gun' came out of Cold War anxieties. I said to Tom in 2019: What anxiety is it w?" says McQuarrie. "What we didn't anticipate was level to which it would accelerate."

In "Mission: Impossible," what you see is rarely what you get. Hunt and his team of spies are masters of deception. At same time, McQuarrie and his crew, including cinematographer Fraser Taggart, go to considerable lengths to ensure what audience is watching feels auntic and immersive.

" challenge rmally is hiding fact that it's t actor doing it," says McQuarrie. "And here reverse is case. You're actually going to great lengths to show that Tom's actually doing it." Taggart, who h shot helicopter sequence in "Fallout," says he's never worked with an actor so resistant to stunt doubles as Cruise — even in most incuous of shots.
"Tom won't do it. He just refuses, even to extent of you'll do an insert of hand," says Taggart. "It can't be anyone else doing it, as you would on or projects. Tom will insist that's him."

Just as "Top Gun: Maverick" strove to get as many cameras in cockpits of fighter jets, set-pieces of "Mission: Impossible" are choreographed to get cameras as close to Cruise and cast — here that includes Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson and Vanessa Kirby — as possible. For Taggart, that meant getting his he around often dizzying challenges like shooting a scene involving a train moving 60 miles an hour through a mountaius Scandinavian landscape with uncontrollable wear conditions. He didn't want just fixed cameras.

"So w we've got to get a whole camera crew involved and some lighting and we'll probably end up with 10 people strapped to top of a train carri, including an old-fashioned physical camera up re," says Taggart. "You think: Can we actually get 10 people on top of train doing 60 miles an hour? That's challenge because you'd really like all of your crew and actors to survive shoot."

In ar sequence with characters inside a falling train cabin, y suspended a camera operator, Chunky Richmond, on stunt wires so he was hanging alongside actors. For a nighttime chase through byzantine passways of Venice — for Taggart one of most complex tasks of "De Reckoning" because of inherent darkness of city — y kcked on doors everywhere along route to get cameras on terraces and pointed out windows.

For an elaborate car chase in Rome, Taggart used robotic arms on vehicles that were mounted but could also move.
"We always try techlogy but we usually break it all," he says. McQuarrie has said he likes to write "Mission: Impossible" movies as y're shooting; "Fallout" began without just an outline. Production on "Part Two" has been paused during promotion on "Part One," and it's unclear if ongoing writers strike would threaten production on sequel. But for McQuarrie and company, only way to make a "Mission: Impossible" movie is full tilt.

"Everything we're doing is by seat of our pants," says McQuarrie. "We want you to come to movie and experience it same way characters are, which is: I don't kw what's going to happen next."