By now, we’re all comfortable with the fact that “Mission: Impossible” is just a bunch of stunts and explosions strung together by a story that doesn’t really matter (seriously, can you remember what the plot of “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation” was?). Tom Cruise has scaled Burj Khalifa, hung off the door of an airplane, and held his breath underwater for several minutes, all the in the name of bringing you maximum popcorn entertainment. But it looks like for “Mission: Impossible 6,” he’s going to top them all.
Collider caught up with Skydance Media CEO David Ellison, and he revealed that Cruise has been working tremendously hard for the past year, all in the name of one big moment.
“…I will say after the Burj [Khalifa] we thought it was going to be impossible to top that stunt, and then Tom did the A380 for the plane. What Tom is doing in this movie I believe will top anything that’s come before. It is absolutely unbelievable—he’s been training for a year. It is going to be, I believe, the most impressive and unbelievable thing that Tom Cruise has done in a movie, and he has been working on it since right after ‘Rogue Nation’ came out. It’s gonna be mind-blowing,” Ellison declared.
And for the producer, it’s Cruise not just giving moviegoers more bang for their buck, but also allowing them to invest more deeply in the adventures of Ethan Hunt.
“It all comes from the best place. It is all about entertaining an audience,” Ellison elaborated. “Tom’s entire mantra for hanging on the side of the Burj Khalifa or the A380 or literally holding your breath for six minutes underwater to do the Taurus sequence is, in a world of massive [visual] effects, he said the audience can tell when it’s you on a green screen or when you’re actually doing it live. And the tension, because the stunt is real, actually puts the audience where Ethan Hunt is where they are in the movie. He said that’s why he does it; it’s all about entertaining an audience and it makes the movie better.”
Even if ‘M:I 6’ isn’t the best movie in the franchise, it’s certainly shaping up to be the stunt-iest. “Mission: Impossible 6” arrives on July 27, 2018.