The eighth – and perhaps last – iteration of the Mission: Impossible film franchise made its big premiere on the first day of the Cannes film festival Wednesday, with producer and star Tom Cruise taking to the red carpet alongside fellow cast members.
Cruise greeted fans as a band played the original Mission: Impossible TV theme – a lower-key entrance than in 2022, when he arrived to a flyover by eight French fighter jets trailing red, white and blue smoke.
One of the most expensive movies ever made, with a budget of about $400 million, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is being released on 21 May after delays due to Covid lockdowns and Hollywood strikes.
The premiere lightened the mood at the festival, whose opening day began with accusations that Hollywood was ignoring "genocide" in Gaza and ended with Robert De Niro calling Donald Trump "America's philistine president".
Even Cruise's optimism has been tested by Trump’s threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on movies produced outside the United States.
Mission: Impossible is one of the most international franchises in Hollywood, with filming in multiple countries and heavy use of London studios.
Living on the edge
The film drew mostly good reviews following its screening and garnered a five-minute standing ovation.
Hours before the premiere, director Christopher McQuarrie revealed that Cruise, a trained acrobatics pilot who does his own stunts, had a close call during a shoot in South Africa, when he passed out after climbing out on the wing of a stunt biplane he was piloting alone.
"He was laying on the wing of the plane, and his arms were hanging over the front of the wing. We could not tell if he was conscious or not," said McQuarrie, who took over directing the franchise in 2015 and has now made the last four films..
(with newswires)
