Videos of a large-scale action sequence involving a steam locomotive careening into a quarry have arrived online, straight from the Mission: Impossible 7 set in Derbyshire, England. After several stops and starts, the seventh film in the long-running franchise is on the cusp of concluding principal photography.
The BBC reports that it took months for the set to be built, and that star Tom Cruise himself was present to witness the stunt being filmed on Friday. Videos shot by locals showed the locomotive hurtling towards a cliff, before plunging into a quarry at top speed. Multiple helicopters filmed coverage from overhead, and there were probably more cameras rolling on-ground. Because let's face it, you don't really get multiple bites at the apple with stunts like this.
Director Christopher McQuarrie had a humorous reaction to the leaked videos. Asked about his opinion on the leaks potentially spoiling important scenes from the movie, McQuarrie quipped on Twitter, “Did they spell my name right?”
Previously, another train-set action scene was somewhat spoiled by fan videos. The clips showed Cruise engaged in close-combat with actor Esai Morales, who plays the primary antagonist. Between shots, he waved at fans from atop a coach.
The train sequence appears to be one of the film’s highlights, although Cruise and McQuarrie, who’ve worked together on the last two Mission: Impossible movies, can be trusted to have more tricks up their sleeves. A still from the film released back in May showed Cruise posing on the side of a steam locomotive much like the one in these leaked videos.
What these videos (and pictures) reveal is that the filmmaker is gunning for practical effects in the movie, which is something that Cruise has also spoken about. He told Empire about the difficulty of putting something like this together during a pandemic, “This is a practical movie. You have to think of rigs that are needed to be built. How do we get them built? We had to figure out how to open shops safely. How do we ADR the actors?” This is highly unusual these days, not to mention very expensive.
Cruise returns to play Ethan Hunt, alongside Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Rebecca Ferguson. They are joined by Cary Elwes, Henry Czerny, Vanessa Kirby, Indira Varma, Pom Klementieff, Hayley Atwell and Mark Gatiss. Mission: Impossible 7 is slated for a May 27, 2022 release. The gang will soon proceed to film the eighth film, also directed by McQuarrie. Watch the set video here: