When it seems as if Cruise can no longer top his previous stunt, he goes one step further.
On July 12, the seventh installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise Dead Reckoning Part One will be released.
In it, Tom Cruise is once again going to surprise the viewers with another deadly stunt, which he traditionally did without a stand-in.
The fact that the stunt, during which the actor had to jump from a mountain springboard on a motorcycle will be in the movie, was known for a long time, but it turned out that it was performed on the very first day of filming.
Director Christopher McQuarrie revealed in an interview with Empire why it was done this way:
“Doing that on day one gave us all the time in the world to understand why he [Ethan] was doing what he was doing. 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 this role Cruise completed a BASE jumping course. For a year, he trained to navigate as well as possible while in free fall. Soon he was doing 30 jumps a day, and in total, during the entire preparation period, made about 500 jumps.
A motocross track was also built for the actor to practice riding and jumping on a motorcycle. By the end of training, Cruise was comfortably jumping from springboard of 80 feet.
Before doing the final version of the stunt, the team built the springboard at a low height and placed a platform at the bottom filled with cardboard boxes to prevent the motorcycle from crashing.
Before making final cut, Tom Cruise “warmed up” by jumping from a helicopter from roughly the same point.
This helped him understand the best time to open his parachute, as he was surrounded by sheer cliffs.
And when everything was finally ready and the team was waiting for the right weather, Cruise finally did the stunt.
Despite the danger of such a jump, and even the fact director Chris McQuarrie called the first take perfect, the team filmed six different takes, one of which will become part of the upcoming movie.
Source: Empire
