Tom Cruise Shot ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ Motorcycle Stunt on Day One So the Crew Would Know: ‘Do We Continue or Is It a Major Rewrite’ If I Fail?
variety.comZack Sharf Digital News Director “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” director Christopher McQuarrie made headlines at the start of June after revealing to Empire magazine that Tom Cruise’s insane motorcycle stunt was shot on the first day of filming.
The stunt, billed as the most death-defying one of Cruise’s acting career thus far, finds Cruise riding a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff and then parachuting to safety while in free fall. “Doing that on day one gave us all the time in the world to understand why he [Ethan] was doing what he was doing,” McQuarrie told the publication. “If we sat around and tried to figure out these movies the old-fashioned way, you’d never find it, simply because it’s such a living, breathing thing.” For Tom Cruise, however, there was a far more practical reason for putting the motorcycle stunt on the first day of the “Mission: Impossible 7” shoot.
If production on the $200 million-plus tentpole was already underway and Cruise got severely injured or died because of the motorcycle stunt, then a lot of money would’ve been wasted.
Cruise suffered an ankle injury on “Mission: Impossible 6” that impacted production, but riding a motorcycle off a cliff was far deadlier than any “Mission” stunt prior. “Well we know either we will continue with the film or we’re not.
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