‘Mission: Impossible 7’ — Chris McQuarrie Talks All the Challenges Involved Into Making the Film, Does Not Rule Out Possible Ninth Installment
Tom Cruise and Rebecca Ferguson in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning – Part One from Paramount Pictures and Skydance. Photo via Entertainment Weekly.
It’s almost been five years without a Mission: Impossible movie in theaters, but the wait is finally about to end. On July 12, Paramount will be ready to release the latest installment in the Tom Cruise-led franchise, once again written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
It was a troubled production from the very beginning, as Dead Reckoning Part One was supposed to start filming in Italy in February 2020 but had to press Pause when the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the country. Three years later, they are almost done with the first movie (they wrapped pickups in late April, so it’s probably a matter of weeks before they picture-lock) and are close to calling a wrap on Part Two. For their Summer Preview, Entertainment Weekly caught up with McQuarrie to chat about the film, and they revealed a few interesting details about the thought process that goes into making these movies.
Apparently even before they have a story, the two of them start pitching each other ideas for the big stunts of the film; said McQuarrie:
“At the start of this movie, I said to Tom, ‘What do you want to do?’ He said, ‘I want to drive a motorcycle off of a cliff. What do you want to do?’ And I said, ‘I want to wreck a train.’ We’re enormous fans of Buster Keaton, John Frankenheimer, David Lean, all of these filmmakers who at one time or another had a fabulous train wreck. I thought, I’ve earned that, I want to wreck one too.”
Tom Cruise and Vanessa Kirby in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One | Credit: Christian Black/Paramount
Both stunts have been already featured in the marketing. Cruise’s motorcycle jump was the stunt they used to end the first trailer, which dropped a year ago, and was also the focus of a behind-the-scenes reel that made its way online earlier this year. Apparently, that was the sequence they decided to resume production with after pausing due to the pandemic, and they traveled all the way to Norway to film it.
McQuarrie’s train-wreck sequence was a bit more challenging, and even had its own (thin-air) controversy, when false reports later debunked by the filmmaker pointed to the crew blowing up a 111-year-old bridge that was considered a historical landmark (see his statement to Empire Magazine here), but in August 2021 he finally fulfilled his ambition:
“A 70-ton train, yes. I think the energy that went into developing it, designing that, building it, and then making a sequence that justified its existence was probably the biggest challenge of my entire life.”
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One finds Cruise’s Ethan Hunt surrounded by his usual crew, and teaming up once again with Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust to infiltrate an event in Venice, as seen in the picture revealed by EW and as McQuarrie explained to them:
“They are at the Doge’s Palace in Venice. It wouldn’t be ‘Mission: Impossible’ if there was not some formal event that our characters had to attend. They’re walking into an event not knowing what it is they’re walking into and it’s compounded by the fact that there’s a great deal of uncertainty. Ethan is involved in something that he himself does not fully understand.”
Tom Cruise and Esai Morales engage in hand-to-hand combat on top of a moving train in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One. Photo via Empire Magazine
The cast also enlisted, once again, Vanessa Kirby as the White Widow and brings back Henry Czerny from the 1996 film. But there are new faces as well, including Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3‘s Pom Klementieff, Top Gun: Maverick‘s Greg Tarzan Davis, and Ozark‘s Esai Morales, who will be playing the main antagonist (first supposed to be portrayed by Nicholas Hault, who had to back down due to a scheduling conflict with Hulu’s The Great):
“I can tell you that he’s definitely the antagonist in our story, or rather he is one of the antagonists in our story. He’s something of an enigma. You discover more about him over the course of the two movies. There’s definitely more to him than meets the eye and he’s something of a ghost of the past.”
But if McQuarrie is mysterious about Morales’ character, he’s even more tight-lipped about another new addition, Hayley Atwell:
“The less I tell you about Hayley Atwell, the better. Hayley represents a stranger in a strange land — she’s somebody who does not come from this world, she’s not a spy, she’s not an agent. If anything, she’s an agent of chaos, and is something of a random element that’s thrown into this story.”
Atwell was apparently someone who the Mission: Impossible crew wanted to have in the franchise for a long time, but it didn’t quite work out until now. She’s featured in the trailers and looks like she’s a big part of a car chase sequence, but we don’t really know much else. Whether we will get to see her in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part Two, remains to be seen, though we do know that the eighth installment will bring Ted Lasso‘s Hannah Waddingham into the fold.
Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie on the set of Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
| Credit: Christian Black/Paramount
As the title indicates, the sequel is set to wrap the story of this summer’s movie, and the two of them were originally pitched as a two-part finale to the entire franchise. However, McQuarrie isn’t ruling out a possible ninth installment just yet:
“Look, we’re still shooting 8 and there’s any number of ways that that story could play out. When you’re watching Mission: Impossible, and watching the team go through these adventures, you’re having some sense of what it’s like to make a Mission: Impossible movie. There’s always a plan, the plan always changes, everything goes completely awry, and hopefully everything always turns out alright in the end. But you never really fully understand, or trust where it is you’re going, until you get there.”
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One opens in theaters worldwide on July 12.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
