MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING Director Considered De-Aging Tom Cruise in Film

Tom Cruise almost joined the de-aging movie club in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. Director Christopher McQuarrie admitted that he considered it for a big opening sequence, but they ultimately didn’t go through with it. The filmmaker told Total Film:

"Originally, there had been a whole sequence at the beginning of the movie that was going to take place in 1989. We talked about it as a cold open, we talked about it as flashbacks in the movie, we looked at de-aging."

In the end, they just decided that de-aging Cruise wasn’t the way to go for a franchise that often relies on its believability over any sort of digital shortcuts. McQuarrie added:

"One of the big things about [the de-aging] I was looking at while researching, I kept saying, 'Boy, this de-aging is really good' or 'This de-aging is not so good.' Never did I find myself actually following the story.”

He went on to talk about Cruise’s look in the scene, saying:

"I was so distracted by an actor that I had known for however long was now suddenly this young person."

Now, while they didn’t use the de-aging process in Dead Reckoning Part One, the director says he may have found a way to introduce de-aging in his future movies, saying:

"In researching that, I cracked the code – I think – on how best to approach it. By then, we had kind of moved away from it. We may still play with it. We never say never."

Cruise looks pretty good for being 61 years old, but he definitely doesn’t look the way he did in the early 90s. It’ll be interesting to see if they ever do end up de-aging the actor. This first Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning movie didn’t really need it, though.

Go see the movie! It’s in theaters now and it’s so damn good!