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Tom Cruise, always one to out-Tom Cruise himself with each subsequent Mission: Impossible sequel, is again doing exactly that with the upcoming seventh film in the franchise.
A key motorcycle maneuver in the film, according to an Empire report from Ella Kemp, marked “the single most dangerous thing [Cruise had] ever done.” The sequence sees Cruise, once again presiding over the critically acclaimed franchise as resilient agent Ethan Hunt, riding a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff. Cruise prepped for the feat by undergoing months of special training, telling the British film publication he only had “seconds” to pull his chute once off the cliff.
“If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp,” Cruise said. “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. 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.”
As any fellow Impossible scholar knows, Cruise has maintained a history of self-performed stunts of this nature, arguably making the press coverage surrounding a key part of any Impossible sequel’s rollout strategy. For the fifth film, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Cruise broke a record by holding his breath underwater for six minutes. An Avatar sequel, as reported last November, later broke Cruise’s record thanks to Kate Winslet.
Other iconic Impossible moments include Cruise dangling from a plane, Cruise scaling intimidating skyscrapers, Cruise getting angry about people not following COVID-19 guidelines, and Cruise pulling off other motorcycle-based endeavors.
The seventh Mission: Impossible film hits theaters on May 27 of next year, followed 45 days later by a Paramount+ streaming debut. The film was originally slated for a summer 2021 release but those plans were altered due to the pandemic, ultimately handing its second planned release date—Nov. 19 of this year—to another Cruise property: Top Gun.
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