Tom Cruise has been the talk of the town for the last few months, as the industry expresses its collective gratitude for the kiss of life that his film, Top Gun: Maverick, gave it last year. Maverick, as Steven Spielberg told Cruise at the recent Oscar nominees’ luncheon, might have saved the struggling theatrical industry with its record-breaking box office success, much of which is due to Cruise holding his ground and absolutely refusing to let it be sold to a streamer during the pandemic. And now, Cruise is gearing up to unleash another big screen event, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, which lands in theaters in just a few months.
The star dropped by on Jimmy Kimmel Live! recently to perform the double duty of promoting Maverick one last time before the Oscars, and soft-launching the publicity tour for Mission: Impossible 7. And the highlight of the chat, beyond Cruise admitting that he’s excited to watch Cocaine Bear too, was him talking about the high-stakes motorbike stunt that was so tantalizingly teased in the film’s first trailer, and then in a behind-the-scenes featurette.
Cruise provided commentary over the footage that we saw in that featurette, as he told a rapt audience about the challenges of the stunt. He said they shot “eight times.” The stunt involves Cruise riding a motorbike off a cliff, free-falling to the ground, and opening his parachute just in the nick of time. He revealed that he had about “six seconds to open the parachute” before he hits the ground. Speaking over the footage of him riding off the ramp, Cruise said that they had to make sure that he’s not attached to the bike in any way. Even his shoelaces were taped. He also reflected on the shenanigans that he’d get up to as a child, which convinced him that this is what he wants to do for a living. In his own words:
“I just use everything I can, use every tool that I have, to entertain the audience. Even as a kid, I’d used to steal lumber from the junkyard, and I’d ride down the hill as fast as I could and hit the ramp and go over garbage cans. I didn’t work… I went through it, split the wood in half and went through the garbage cans, and spent the next few days in the hospital.”
Tom Cruise's Reputation as a Daredevil Precedes Him
Cruise has developed a reputation for preforming a series of dramatic stunts in the Mission: Impossible movies that have only been increasing in intensity with every new installment. Already, we’ve seen glimpses of what he has in store for us in the franchise’s final two films. The first trailer for Mission: Impossible 7 teased a phenomenal action sequence aboard a vintage train, as well as the show-stopping BASE jump scene. The eighth movie will apparently have a sequence in which Cruise flies a World War II-era biplane.
But in addition to his daredevil persona, Cruise has also established himself as one of the biggest champions of the theatrical experience. He successfully convinced Paramount to hold off on selling Maverick to streamers during the pandemic, and that paid off with the film eventually grossing nearly $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office. It also earned him unprecedented leverage with the studio, when the budget for Mission: Impossible 7 reportedly ballooned to nearly $300 million.
M:I 7 also stars Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Cary Elwes and Esai Morales. The film is slated for a July 14, 2023, release, while Mission: Impossible 8 will arrive in theaters on June 28, 2024. You can watch Cruise’s full conversation with Kimmel here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.