Tom Cruise doesn't do things by halves. For Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the eighth (and final?) installment in the franchise he has been leading for nearly thirty years, the 61-year-old actor made no fewer than sixteen parachute jumps with a flaming canopy, a first in the history of cinema... and in the history of records.
The king of stunts sets a new record
The feat earned him an entry in the Guinness World Records in the category "Most parachute jumps on fire by a single person," which is quite impressive. Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of the famous book, praised a performance worthy of the character: "Tom doesn't just play an action hero, he is one. It's an honor to recognize that fearless side with this new title.""
To achieve this spectacular sequence, the actor and his crew spent several weeks preparing in the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa. They reached over 75,000 feet in an altitude of more than 22,000 meters in a helicopter. The actor then jumped into the void with a fuel-soaked parachute, before detaching and opening a reserve canopy.
In a video posted on Paramount Pictures' YouTube channel, we get a behind-the-scenes look at the shoot. Tom Cruise discusses the challenges with the stunt coordinators: "If it twists while it's burning, I'm going to start spinning and burning," he jokes. He adds, not without irony: "We're going to be smart. I'm not saying we're taking risks... obviously.""
Each jump was captured using special equipment: a 22-kilogram Snorri camera attached directly to the actor's torso, to film the scene up close. In the final cut, we can see the 16 jumps linked together at full speed, to the rhythm of the film's famous music.
True to his reputation, Cruise performs a stunt that adds to a long list of personal exploits performed without a stunt double. Climbing the Burj Khalifa tower, hanging from a plane in flight or even riding a motorcycle launched at full speed into the void: for him, action comes above all from believability - with the discreet help of a few special effects.
The public seems to appreciate it: after a roaring start, the film is approaching $400 million at the box office. That's just the estimated budget for the blockbuster. But it will take much more for the film to become profitable.
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