LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Tom Cruise is currently the flavor of Hollywood. He has made sure his upcoming movie 'Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One' is the talk of the town. Be it for its budget, its predicted opening, his co-stars, or the most talked about- his stunts. The actor, 60, gives each project his whole, undivided attention, doing everything he can to make it the best movie possible. This applies to the stunt scenes as it is widely known that Cruise often risks his safety for fans' amusement. Nowhere is this more evident than in the 'Mission: Impossible' series, where the actor always appears to raise the bar with each new premiere. In the latest act of daredevilry, the actor will be seen doing a motorcycle stunt that involves jumping off a cliff. This makes us wonder about the state of his insurance company.
Funny story, the actor is known to be quite stubborn when he sets his mind to doing something in his films. With the fourth movie of the series, 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol', he physically reached new heights when performing his own stunts, hanging, running, and jumping over the side of the highest building in the world - The Burj Khalifa. However, this stunt almost did not happen, Cruise insurers for the movie were not willing to sign off on this dangerous mission for Ethan Hunt. Cruise did not bat an eye before he fired the whole lot and got someone to do things on his own terms.
'Tom wanted to fire the insurance company'
Steve recently spoke with Skydance Production CEO David Ellison and CCO Dana Goldberg during a group interview at the Berlin premiere of Terminator Genisys, and during the course of their wide-ranging conversation, Ellison told a great story about the Burj Khalifa stunt sequence from 'Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol'
He said, "On Ghost Protocol, we wanted to hang Tom off the side of a building and we actually couldn't get insurance, and Tom wanted to fire the insurance company [laughs]. And we did and we got somebody to insure the movie. A hilarious but true story is it was the day we were actually rehearsing the Burj Khalifa, it was the whole stunt team, Tom on the side of the building, me, [director] Brad Bird, and [producer] Bryan Burk, and Tom was padded up, had the helmet on, and we had rehearsed for months inside these hangars and sound stages and Tom kicked off the building and, as he would describe it, spectacularly crashed into it head first, and me and Burk and Brad were like 'this is a really bad idea'."
'Tom nailed it perfectly'
He further added, "In true Tom fashion, while we were all arguing amongst ourselves about how we were the largest idiots known to mankind for putting ourselves in this situation, Tom reset back to one with the stunt guys and nailed it perfectly on the second rehearsal. And we all kind of looked at each other and were like, 'Well, that's why he's Tom Cruise.' We shot it the next day. We shot it twice and it was spectacular."
Tom Cruise took stunts to a new level, as the sequence involves Cruise riding a motorcycle up a ramp and off a cliff, jumping off said motorcycle, and then parachuting to the ground. To prepare for the feat, the actor allegedly completed 1300 motorbike jumps and 500 hours of skydiving training. 'Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One' is all set to release on 12 July 2023.
