Tom Cruise nearly died during 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' shoot
- By Web Desk -
- May 15, 2025
Tom Cruise is all set to return as IMF agent Ethan Hunt for the last time, in the forthcoming final edition of ‘Mission: Impossible’; however, the ‘Final Reckoning’ could have been the end of the Hollywood superstar as well, feared director Christopher McQuarrie.
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Ahead of the film’s premiere at the ongoing 78th Cannes Film Festival, director Christopher McQuarrie of ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ recounted the horrifying shoot day of a death-defying sequence in the title, where Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt appeared to pass out while walking between the two wings of a biplane as the aircraft was mid-air somewhere in South Africa.
According to the details, Cruise, who is a trained acrobatics pilot and performs his own stunts at 62, was flying the biplane alone, and was laid out flat on the wing after spending 22 minutes out of the cockpit – 10 more than safety guidelines allowed, recalled McQuarrie and added, “When you leave the cockpit of the plane, it’s like stepping onto the surface of another planet. The wind is hitting you in excess of 140 miles an hour coming off the propeller. You’re breathing, but only physically – You’re not actually getting oxygen.”
“Tom had pushed himself to the point that he was so physically exhausted, he couldn’t get back up off the wing. He was lying on the wing, his arms hanging over the front. We could not tell if he was conscious or not,” the Oscar-winning filmmaker explained.
Reportedly, the superstar had agreed to give a hand signal to the director if he was in trouble. “You can’t do this when you’re unconscious,” McQuarrie shared and revealed how the matter went worse, when the plane had only six minutes of fuel left.
“We watched Tom as he pulled himself up and stuck his head in the cockpit so that he could replenish the oxygen in his body and then climb up into the cockpit and bring the plane safely down to land,” the director remembered and applauded, “No one on Earth can do that but Tom Cruise.”
Also Read: Tom Cruise reveals surprising reason for doing ‘Mission: Impossible’ films
Notably, Tom Cruise-led final film of the franchise, which was previously supposed to be part two of ‘Dead Reckoning: Part One’, but is now officially called ‘The Final Reckoning’, is scheduled to hit theatres on May 23.