Pictures and videos of Tom Cruise, engaged in yet another death-defying stunt for the upcoming Mission Impossible 8, have arrived online. According to The Sun, the sequence was being rehearsed 2000 ft above Cambridge. Cruise was photographed practicing the stunt, which appears to involve a World War II biplane.
He took off from the Duxford Aerodrome in Cambridgeshire and slipped out of the cockpit to make his way onto the wing of the aircraft when it hit a certain altitude. Harnessed to the wing, Cruise dangled himself upside down, which is when the plane flipped on its belly, leaving the actor sitting the right side up. The pilot then sent the plane into a nosedive, and performed a spin, before Cruise made his way back into the cockpit.
The vintage aircraft was tailed by another plane, presumably to rehearse the camera movements. It was reported in October, also by The Sun, that Cruise was learning to fly a World War II military plane for a special stunt sequence for the eighth film in the long-running action series.
The report quoted an insider as saying:
“Tom had started to learn to fly a Boeing Stearman biplane earlier this year for a major stunt scene in Mission: Impossible 8. It’s obviously a highly skilled task but as usual he has no plans to cut any corners or bring in a stuntman. Filming has only just wrapped on Mission: Impossible 7 but Tom has not given himself a break. And trying to film jaw-dropping scenes with an 80-year-old plane is particularly dangerous.”
Filming on the seventh Mission Impossible movie wrapped in September. Both films are being directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who also helmed the fifth and sixth installments in the franchise. The sixth--Mission: Impossible - Fallout--is widely considered to be the best of the lot, and also the most successful, commercially.
Based on the television series of the same name, the Mission Impossible film franchise started in 1996, and has become increasingly defined by the escalating danger that Cruise puts himself in with each new entry. For the fourth film, the actor famously scaled the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and for the fifth film, he clung onto a plane as it took off. In the sixth film, he held his breath for an inordinate duration of time, and also flew a helicopter for the climactic action sequence.
Set images from the seventh Mission Impossible film have revealed elaborate set-pieces that involve vintage locomotives. Co-starring Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Hayley Atwell, Vanessa Kirby and Esai Morales, the seventh installment will arrive in theaters on September 30, 2022, followed by the eighth film on July 7, 2023.
You can check out the images here: