‘Mission Impossible 6’ Enters Hiatus Due to Tom Cruise Injury

Last week, we learned that Tom Cruise was injured on the set of ‘Mission Impossible 6‘. The accident happened while performing his own stunt (as he is well known to do), jumping form building to building. Although no official word was given at the time of the incident, Cruise reportedly sustained a great deal of damage to his foot. It was estimated at the time that actor/producer might need up to three months for his ankle to heal, at which time production would resume.

A few days ago, director Christopher McQuarrie (‘Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation‘) spoke with Empire about how the accident actually happened:

“The speculation was that Tom had somehow missed or fell short. The truth is that the stunt was never designed for Tom to jump from rooftop to rooftop which a) would have been pretty boring and b) when you see the actual shot you’ll understand how it was designed. Also, when you look at what was posted on the internet, you can see Tom do the same stunt multiple times. He was always supposed to slam into the side of the building. That’s what gives the stunt its energy. He was completely safe the entire time he was doing that. He was padded. What happened is a matter of coordinating what Tom is doing with what the camera is doing, which means you have to do it a number of times. And on the fourth try, he hit the building at a slightly different angle and he broke his ankle. He knew the instant that he hit the building that his ankle was broken. You can see it on his face. We had four cameras rolling on it, and you can see it on the video that’s on the internet. He knew in that instant, ‘well, we’re not coming back here. We’re not doing this again today’. So he got up and powered through the shot, and then he got off-camera and as soon as he knew he was off-camera he went down. He knew that was the only way to preserve the shot. I don’t know that I would have the wherewithal to do that.”

Here’s a video of the accident that McQuarrie refers to:

[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/xpwRKox0Kp0″]

With a release date of July 27, 2018, one can quickly see how this creates a multitude of problems for the production. At this point, a possible three month delay on filming seems like it will force the ‘Mission Impossible 6’ to push it’s release date form it’s current slot. In the interview with Empire, McQuarrie discussed the ramifications of the production delay:

“You never stop working. I’m on the backlot at Leavesden right now, getting ready to shoot an insert out in the field. You simply rearrange the order in which you were going to do certain things on the movie. This in fact gives us an opportunity to go into editorial and look at what we’ve shot and reassess the movie, which is a luxury you don’t normally have because you’re on a train that just doesn’t stop. We’ll assess what there is to be shot. And what we can shoot, and then what we’ll do is once we’ve shot through that we’ll go on a hiatus and then I’ll shift my attention over to editorial. We’ve already shot a huge chunk of the movie so you’re just taking a big chunk of post-production and moving it up sooner. Then we go back to shooting when the hiatus is over, which is to the full benefit of the movie. It’s similar to situations I’ve had on other movies where, for whatever reason, you go on hiatus and you’re able to look at the movie in a way you normally couldn’t and reevaluate. The lesson I learned on Valkyrie, which had its share of difficulties in production, and we always used to say ‘disaster is an opportunity to excel’.”