Motorcycle Off a Cliff? Pfft, Tom Cruise's Biggest Stunt Hasn't Even Happened Yet
The actor seems to raise the stakes with each new Mission Impossible movie, and his stunt in the upcoming Dead Reckoning Part One pales in comparison to the one that follows.
Tom Cruise has made a name for himself over the years as an actor who isn't afraid to do his own stunts, regardless of the potential danger.
Most of those stunts have come from the Mission Impossible franchise, in which the actor has starred since the release of the first film in 1996, and with each new installment, Cruise seems to only raise the stakes.
The upcoming seventh film, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, features the most dangerous of them all, with Tom riding a motorcycle off a cliff and deploying a parachute at the last second.
However, the actor's most menacing action sequence is yet to come, as the film's director Christopher McQuarrie recently revealed.
Speaking to IGN, the filmmaker said that something truly terrifying is coming in the next movie, as the cliff jump was only the most dangerous in terms of Part One.
"But we have continued and we've pushed ourselves even further in Part Two, and you'll see," McQuarrie said.
When asked how scenes like this get greenlit in the first place, he said their whole motto is "This is a terrible idea – when do we start?" and that's "how you know you're on to something."
Fans say that it is already getting a little ridiculous and that the next step for Cruise is to literally go into space.
Others half-jokingly point out that the actor has a good chance that one of these stunts will end rather badly for him, but they "can't imagine him going out any other way."
While such stunts have become a staple of the franchise, the question again arises as to when it is time to draw the line and hire professional stuntmen.
After all, there are plenty of examples where actors have been seriously injured on set, with lifelong consequences and sometimes even more tragic results.
Tom Cruise is a great actor, so the fans' concerns for him are completely valid, but on the other hand, him doing his own stunts is one of the factors that attracts audiences to watch his movies.
So it seems that all we can do is hope for the best and that Tom doesn't run out of luck anytime soon.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One will be released in less than a month, on July 12, 2023. The next installment of Ethan Hunt's adventures is scheduled for June 28, 2024.