The world has seen Tom Cruise put his body through major stunts, like jumping off buildings and planes from high altitudes, but his upcoming seventh installment of the titular franchise, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One will see the actor pull of one of the most dangerous stunts yet.
In a new featurette from Paramount Pictures, the studio takes audiences behind the scenes of how Cruise prepped for “one of the most dangerous sports in the world.” Revealing that he had been training for years, Cruise had to learn how to speed-fly. Director Christopher McQuarrie clarifies, “While it may look similar, speed-flying is not skydiving. Skydiving is fairly predictable. Speed-flying is very unpredictable.” For those who are unfamiliar with the sport, speed-flying is more similar to paragliding, but the flyer is meant to stay close to slopes to pick up more speed. The close proximity to slopes makes the sport dangerous due ot its higher increase chances to collide with the land.
Cruise talks about his experience stating, “It’s a very beautiful and delicate sport. We’re gonna do spirals, and we’re landing at an incredibly high speed, over 80 kilometers an hour.” While the speed-flying looked beautiful, McQuarrie admitted, “Behind the scenes we were all in absolute terror.” For the same film, Cruise continued to risk his life in a death-defying act, riding a motorcycle off the edge of the cliff and parachuting to safety just on the first day of filming. The actor reportedly wanted it that way because his survival meant that it would determine the rest of filming on the $200 million USD tentpole. He told ET prior, “Let us know day one what is going to happen: Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?”
Watch Tom Cruise take on yet another death-defying stunt in the featurette above. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One arrive in theaters on July 12.
In other entertainment news, Chadwick Boseman, Dre. Drew and Michelle Yeoh are joining the 2024 Hollywood Walk of Fame Class.
