Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One director Christopher McQuarrie reveals that they considered using VFX to de-age Tom Cruise for a scrapped opening flashback sequence. The seventh film in the long-running action franchise, McQuarrie and Cruise’s latest collaboration features superspy Ethan Hunt facing off against a new villain to destroy a dangerous AI known as the Entity. The film has already been a hit critically and commercially, but McQuarrie now reveals that the sequel was almost quite different.
Following Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’s release, McQuarrie reveals to Total Film (via GamesRadar) that the movie nearly featured an opening flashback sequence in which Cruise was de-aged by several decades. While the sequence didn’t make it into the latest film, the director doesn’t rule out including such a sequence in a future installment. Check out McQuarrie’s full comment below:
“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.
“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. I was so distracted by an actor that I had known for however long was now suddenly this young person.
“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.”
Is Deaging Tom Cruise For Mission: Impossible A Good Idea?
The most recent movie to explore de-aging its main character is, of course, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which de-ages star Harrison Ford by about 30 years for an extended opening flashback sequence. The VFX technology on display during this sequence is a little hit or miss but, even when it works, McQuarrie’s comment rings true. Technical aspects of the filmmaking kind of take over for this sequence and, as skillfully as the action set piece is constructed, the VFX prove somewhat distracting.
The recent installments of the Mission: Impossible franchise pride themselves on the practical filmmaking on display. Stunts, while often featuring VFX enhancements, are usually primarily captured in-camera, which is part of what sets the franchise apart from most of its peers. Featuring an extended opening flashback in which Cruise is de-aged by several decades would allow McQuarrie to explore aspects of Ethan’s past more fully, but it may also feel very out of place. Plus, it just doesn’t feel like the technology is quite there yet.
That being said, both McQuarrie and Cruise are seemingly interested in making additional sequels beyond Mission: Impossible 8. In fact, Cruise even expressed interest in following Ford’s lead and continuing to make these action movies into his 70s and 80s. While Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One shows that Cruise is showing no signs of slowing down just yet, there will eventually come a time when the physical limitations of his age start to show, and this is when using de-aging technology may become more useful as a storytelling tool.