Actor Tom Cruise has developed a reputation not only for performing his own stunts but also for making them incredibly elaborate and downright terrifying.
For “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” which hits theaters next July, Cruise and his team worked up a stunt for the ages. His plan was to gun a motorcycle down an elevated ramp on the edge of a Norwegian cliff, head directly into skydive mode once he’s airborne, and then parachute back to the ground.
The whole thing is over and done in a flash, but Cruise said in a behind-the-scenes video released Monday that it took “years” to develop and perfect.
“This is far and away the most dangerous thing we’ve ever attempted,” Cruise says in a voiceover as the clip begins:
Image source: YouTube screenshot
Cruise practiced motocross jumps and skydiving to prepare for the stunt — but not just a few times. Experts working on the stunt with Cruise said he performed over 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps to get him operating like clockwork.
Image source: YouTube screenshot
But the training was just one necessity. Cruise’s team practiced the stunt in England using harnesses — as well as a ton of technology to track and calculate trajectory and many other factors:
Image source: YouTube screenshot
Then Cruise & co. headed to Norway and helicoptered everything to the cliff for the real thing, constructing the ramp over several months:
Image source: YouTube screenshot
Talk about a big budget.
Image source: YouTube screenshot
Cruise “warmed up” with some jumps from a helicopter:
Image source: YouTube screenshot
Soon it was go time.
Miles Daisher, the movie’s BASE jumping coach, tried to calm everyone’s nerves: “You know, the only things you really have to avoid while doing a stunt like this is serious injury or death.”
Fortunately, Daisher added that “you’re riding a motorcycle — which is pretty dangerous — on top of a ramp that’s elevated … so if you come off the ramp, that’s gonna be very bad. You’re falling — if you don’t get a clean exit from the bike, and you get tangle up with it; if you don’t open your parachute, you’re not gonna make it.”
Then a nifty drone filmed Cruise going for it, without a harness, without a soft landing spot:
Image source: YouTube screenshot
By now you might be asking yourself how this all played out. If so, check out the behind-the-scenes video:
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History (Tom Cruise)
