Tom Cruise and director/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie introduced the world premiere of Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One in Rome on Monday evening.
Fresh from a stroll up the Spanish Steps in the heart of the city (a car chase in the film takes place on the famous stone staircase and in the Piazza di Spagne), Cruise and McQuarrie took the stage in the Auditorium della Conciliazione and in opening comments thanked “the people of Rome” and the local governments in Rome and Venice.
McQuarrie said it was “unforgettable” filming the seventh film in the franchise in Italy, most coming during the Covid pandemic.
Cruise, who was indefatigable today in taking time with everyone on the red carpet (so much so the movie screening started later than planned because it was such a big day), recalled what it took to pull off the film.
“Everyone knows when we shot this film here, and what was going on in the world,” he said onstage. And had it not been for every person in the entire community, to work with us — all the way from the restaurants in the streets, the police everyone on the road to government and medical staff — to make sure that we’re all safe and to create what we’re going to create this evening,” he said. “I just want you to know every day we were on the phone and working together to keep everything going to bring work to people, to raise the bar to people. And I want to say that the people came to visit daily to say hello to us and encourage us — it was a very beautiful time.”
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The pair also introduced cast members Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, Vanessa Kirby, Henry Czerny, Pom Klementieff, Esai Morales, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis (reteaming with Cruise after last year’s Top Gun: Maverick), Cary Elwes, Frederick Schmidt and Mariela Garriga.
McQuarrie, Cruise’s frequent collaborator who also produces with Cruise and co-wrote the script with Erik Jendresen, is back helming his third Mission installment, as well as the next one that’s due in 2024, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two.
In 2018, the McQuarrie-directed Mission: Impossible – Fallout became the highest grossing of the franchise at just under $792 million global and anticipation is high for this follow-up, which hits theaters globally beginning July 12.
Dead Reckoning Part One (aka M:I7) sees Cruise’s Ethan Hunt as and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future, and the fate of the world at stake, and dark forces from Ethan’s past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than his mission – not even the lives of those he cares about most.