Everyone knows that Tom Cruise loves his stunts and action sequences to be epic in every sense of the word, but the original cut of the train sequence in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One was so long it had a runtime longer than many feature-length movies.
As it stands, the train scene still runs for a fair old 50 minutes, taking up a large chunk of the movie’s runtime, but according to editor Eddie Hamilton that was nothing compared to how the sequence started. He told Variety:
"[The sequence] was about an hour-and-a-half long in our first iteration. We got it down to like 50 minutes in the finished movie. It was originally a bit longer and we lifted a few sections out because they were saying it was too much.”
Not wanting to over-milk the expensive and time-consuming effort that went into filming the section of the movie, it seems that having almost an hour and a half on that once sequence is what helped push the original film to a runtime of four hours. Doing so was not an easy task though, as Hamilton explained when talking about editing down the climactic three-minute scene of the train falling into the ravine. He added:
“If it’s three minutes, it’s too long, so we combed through every shot and asked if we needed this frame and ‘Can we cut this any tighter?' We’re really trying to squeeze every bit of air out of the movie.”
Dead Reckoning Part Two Will Continue To Push Boundaries
While there are many thrilling moments in Dead Reckoning Part One, the second instalment of the film will continue to push the limits of what can be achieved on screen. The next time around, Cruise and his team will be getting a frosty reception when they head to the Arctic Circle to film an action sequence unlike any that has been filmed before. Star Hayley Atwell recently revealed how filming in the Arctic was something of a Mission: Impossible in itself.
“Nothing has ever been filmed in the Arctic for a movie of this scale. People thought that it would be impossible, and luckily, Team Mission just came in and totally invalidated that belief system. I can say that the main focus was the safety of the cast and the crew, but also the respect of the landscape out there. The territory feels unowned in a way because it’s so majestic and raw. At times, in minus 55 with a wind chill, having to get action dialogue in that takes a tremendous amount of organization and focus. So how they put that together and weave that into the story, I don’t know, but it will remain the most extraordinary place I’ve ever been on this planet and will probably ever go.“
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is out in theaters now.