Tom Cruise may be used to performing some death-defying stunts around the world, but it looks like he won’t be doing them in the Arctic after being blocked from filming there by the Norwegian authorities. According to a new report by The Guardian, filming on Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 2 hit stumbling block when the production was denied a request to carry out 40 helicopter landings on the protected archipelago of Svalbard, which lies between Norway and the North Pole, due to concerns it could detriment the local wildlife.
Despite there being no big stunts with helicopters being allowed to go ahead, it seems that there has been some limited filming allowed in certain locations for the movie. Mission: Impossible 8 has already seen Cruise turning up in various places to film some of the new action sequences that will be seen in what has previously been reported as Cruise’s last franchise movie. This has included filming in the Lake District in the U.K., and on board an aircraft carrier in the Aegean Sea near Italy. Following the news that their latest filming attempt has been denied, it is not clear whether anything filmed in Svalbard will now be used in the movie or where the team will have to find another place to pick up those scenes.
Mission: Impossible 7 Will Hit Theaters This Summer
While Tom Cruise has already moved on to the second part of Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning, Part 1 of the double-header has been receiving a lot of praise for Cruise’s performance and for being a “complete thrill ride”, but is also said to be too long and needs another round of edits. The film is scheduled to be released on July 14, among a packed summer of action blockbusters, but there is every chance that the latest instalment of the franchise can make 2022 another huge year for Cruise following the epic performance of Top Gun: Maverick last year.
Ahead of the movie’s arrival, writer and director Christopher McQuarrie helped to explain what the film’s subtitle means for the franchise and the future of Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. He said:
“There are many things emerging from Ethan’s past. ‘Dead reckoning’ is a navigational term. It means you’re picking a course based solely on your last known position and that becomes quite the metaphor not only for Ethan, but several characters. The first thing we knew was that if it’s gonna be a big two-part adventure, it’s got to be epic. It’s going to have to be the instalment that swallows the rest of the franchise whole. There’s just not another way to do it.”
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One reunites the likes of Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Henry Czerny, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, while bringing in some new blood in the form of Frederick Schmidt, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Esai Morales, Rob Delaney, Charles Parnell, Indira Varma, Mark Gatiss, Cary Elwes, and Holt McCallany.