MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING Director Teases Insane Fight Scene Stunt on Top of Train

Director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise seem to enjoy pushing the limits of the stunts that they include in their Mission: Impossible films. The action sequences just seem to get bigger, more elaborate, and there are higher stakes.

There’s already been one huge stunt teased for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One with Cruise driving a motorcycle off a cliff into a base jump. Well, there’s another insane stunt that they did for the film that featured a fight sequence on top of a speeding train, which they actually did practically!

The scene was shot near York, and it finds Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in a brawl with Esai Morales’ villain on top of a steam train. As you might imagine, this was not an easy task! During an interview with Empire, McQuarrie explains that had they known how challenging it would be to shoot this scene, they wouldn’t have done it. He said:

“We’re making a movie that involves sequence that they just don’t shoot practically anymore, and haven’t in a long, long time. The sequence that we’re shooting right now is no exception. And like most things on Mission: Impossible, if we had known what the challenges were when we started, we would never have done it.”

This scene has been teased in some footage that has been released, but I imagine the whole sequence is going to be quite an awesome site to see. The director also talked about Cruise driving a motorcycle off a cliff saying:

“There’s a whole class of action movies centred around awe. For me, awe is a condiment, not a course. I have an actor who will drive a motorcycle off a cliff. Now the hard part is, I gotta make the audience care about that.”

I recently got to watch a new trailer and 20 minutes of footage from the movie that featured an incredibly fun car chase sequence. We share our reaction to that footage here. This movie is just going to be filled with all kinds of awesome stuff for fans to enjoy!

The test screenings are also doing really well, and apparently, these audiences are losing their minds over the movie, and after watching what I just saw… I believe it!

The movie also stars Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Vanessa Kirby, and Henry Czerny along with newcomers Shea Whigham (Joker), Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Avengers: Infinity War) and Esai Morales (La Bamba, Titans), Charles Parnell, Indira Varma (Game of Thrones), Mark Gatiss, and Cary Elwes (Saw). Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation), Janet McTeer (Tumbleweeds, Albert Nobbs), Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), and Holt McCallany (Mindhunter, Nightmare Alley).

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Part Two will be released on July 14th, 2023, and June 28th, 2024.