WTF Happened to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

If you had a gun to your head and had to answer candidly, what would you say is the best action movie franchise of the 21st century? While John Wick is quickly climbing the ranks and a real argument for the Fast and Furious can be made, when it comes to jaw-dropping stunts and eye-popping setpieces that continue to get better each time out, it’s hard to top what Tom Cruise has been able to achieve with the Mission: Impossible franchise. Indeed, while early results from directors like Brian De Palma and John Woo might be varied, Tom Cruise has remained the one constant and used his superstar wattage to help everyone from JJ Abrams to Brad Bird retain his own stamp while improving the overall quality of the franchise. With that in mind, the collaboration between Cruise and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie has catapulted the Mission Impossible Franchise to a new level of dazzling entertainment and death-defying stuntwork.

Remember, Cruise and McQuarrie have remained simpatico since working together on Valkyrie in 2008. Since then, McQuarrie has penned scripts for such popular Cruise vehicles as Jack Reacher, The Edge of Tomorrow, The Mummy, and Top Gun: Maverick. In the interim, McQuarrie wrote and directed Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and of course, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, part one of which is currently playing in cinemas.

Although the movie has proven to be a decent critical and commercial success thus far, a lot of behind-the-scenes drama relating to COVID-19 inadvertently delayed the production, substantially ballooned the budget, and posed quite a legal risk for Paramount Pictures. Throw in controversy over the use of a historic Polish bridge for key stunts in the film and a stunt that suffered an accidental fire, and the seventh Mission: Impossible movie may not seem so lucky after all. Stay tuned, we’ll dig up and examine a lot more about the making of the movie when we discover WTF Happened to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning!