How Tom Cruise kept the final Mission: Impossible film alive for 7 years through pandemic, strikes

NEW YORK – To make the last chapter in the long-running Mission: Impossible spy franchise, star and producer Tom Cruise had to keep the production alive through the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as two Hollywood strikes.

Seven years later, he is finally able to unveil Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the eighth film in a blockbuster series that began with 1996’s Mission: Impossible and has earned more than US$4 billion (S$5.2 billion) at the global box office.

Now showing in Singapore cinemas, the movie sees Cruise return as indefatigable spy Ethan Hunt, who must track down a rogue artificial intelligence known as the Entity.

At the New York premiere on May 18, the 62-year-old American actor thanks his collaborators, beginning with the film’s director and co-writer. Christopher McQuarrie wrote and directed the last four movies in the series.

“The story is a culmination of the last 30 years of Mission: Impossible,” says Cruise, whose role as a hotshot fighter pilot in 1986’s Top Gun first established him as an action star.

“And no one could have done what McQ has done. Thank you so much for everything that you’ve done and the characters you created,” he says to the American film-maker, with whom he also collaborated on the sequel Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and science-fiction blockbuster Edge Of Tomorrow (2014).

“And what we’ve gone through – it’s been seven years since we started talking about it and McQ wanted to make two of them,” Cruise recalls, referring to The Final Reckoning and the previous film, 2023’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

“During that time, we also made Top Gun: Maverick and went through a pandemic and two strikes, and it was just all of us coming together to really will this thing into being.

“But to deliver this for everyone here is a great honour, and it’s a privilege to be able to entertain you,” he says.

He also acknowledges his co-stars – including English castmates Hayley Atwell and Simon Pegg, who reprise their roles as Hunt’s teammates – and “all our crew and craftsmen”, many of whom worked on the previous chapters as well.

“I love you guys. Every single day, it was just a joy to work with you.”

But McQuarrie chimes in and points out that “there’s one guy Tom Cruise can’t thank – and that’s Tom Cruise”.

“We’re all here because of Tom,” says the 56-year-old, who won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for crime thriller The Usual Suspects (1995).

“You know him for great acting and amazing stunts, but we’re all here because of this man’s hard work and his dedication.

“(Making) this was a seven-year process through some very difficult times for everybody in the industry, and we’re here because he kept it alive.”

Cruise is keen for audiences to be in the cinema when they watch this final film, for which he once again does his own death-defying stunts, including walking out onto the wing of a flying biplane.

“I make movies for the big screen and I don’t want people to (just) watch the film – I want them to experience it and participate in cinema,” says Cruise.

“And that’s why I love going to the movie theatres. I love the popcorn and having a big-screen experience with strangers, but we’re all unified in this experience of watching a movie,” he adds.

To preserve the sanctity of that experience, he also made sure there were no spoilers in the marketing.

“We are not revealing what’s in this film. Whatever you see in clips and trailers, I’m not showing anything,” says Cruise.

“So when people sit down, they’re going to be like, ‘We did not give anything away.’”