Tom Cruise Adds Fighting Atop A Speeding Train To His Mission Impossible Stunts

Tom Cruise's daring stunts have been a defining feature of the Mission: Impossible franchise, and the upcoming Dead Reckoning Part One promises to be no exception. In an exclusive still from the film released to Empire, it's revealed that one of the film's most impressive sequences involves a fight scene atop a speeding steam train.

Director Christopher McQuarrie admits that the train sequence was one of the most challenging scenes to shoot. In an interview with Empire on set in 2021, he said, "We're making a movie that involves a sequence that they just don't shoot practically anymore, and haven't in a long, long time." McQuarrie explained that filming the scene on an actual moving train added an element of realism that would be impossible to replicate in a studio.

He added that the difficulty of the scene was not just in executing the stunts, but also in creating an emotional connection between the audience and the characters. McQuarrie said, "There's a whole class of action movies centered 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."

Dead Reckoning Part One also promises to feature other adrenaline-pumping action sequences, including a car chase, a sword fight, and a desert shootout. Fans of the franchise can look forward to another heart-pounding adventure with Ethan Hunt and his team when the film is released in theaters on July 12. Dead Reckoning Part Two, meanwhile, lands on June 28, 2024.

Dead Reckoning also stars Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, and Simon Pegg. McQuarrie is working with Cruise again for Dead Reckoning Part Two and the movie in which Cruise gets shot into real outer space on a rocket.