Tom Cruiseis certainly no stranger to doing his own stunts in the action movies that he’s in, especially when it comes to theMission: Impossiblefranchise. Whether he’s skydiving hundreds of times, flying his own helicopter, scaling the largest building in the world, jumping between buildings, or hanging off the edge of a plane, Tom Cruise’s fearless attitude is always pushing the limits of stunt work to the next level.
This belief in the importance of real stunts and his belief in doing them himself has led to what Cruise and Paramount Pictures are calling “The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History.” The stunt, put together and performed by Cruise with the help of a massive crew of people, is a motorcycle jump off of a huge cliff directly into a BASE jump. Watch the death-defying video here:
Tom Cruise Needed Intense Training to Prepare for the Jump
No stunt of any kind would be possible without rigorous preparation, but a stunt of this magnitude required hundreds upon thousands of hours ofprep by Cruisealone. In order to prepare, Cruise first had to learn how to properly control his body while skydiving. He learned to position himself in a way that his body could catch as much air as possible to not only slow his descent and give him more time in the air.
After learning how to control his body while diving, the next step in his skydiving training was to work on controlling his canopy parachute in order to safely make it to the ground. More and more drops helped him maneuver his canopy better until he was an expert skydiver. When his training was all said and done, Cruise had done over 500 drops, according to his trainers.
After the skydiving portion of his stunt training was complete, Cruise had to become a motocross jumping professional as well, to properly complete the stunt jump before going into his dive. Cruise had to learn how to control his body as well as his bike to drive at the proper speed and safely land after each jump. Each jump was leading Cruise to go off of the massive stunt ramp, and preparation required Cruise to complete over 13,000 separate motocross jumps before he was ready to practice off a larger ramp.
Cruise’s practice off a larger ramp was putting all of his training to work, as he needed to exit the ramp at the proper speed, safely abandon his bike while in the air, and control his body to finish the jump. These practice runs were also essential to the technical preparation of the stunt, as a GPS attached to Cruise’s body helped stunt coordinators anticipate the required speed and angle of Cruise’s jump to best prepare when it wastime to film the real thing.
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Extreme Technical Preparation Was Also Necessary
Just getting one person ready to do a jump of this level requires intense preparation, but being able to film it for a major motion picture is a whole other story as well. Even without filming, the ramp itself required months of time to be built by engineers and technicians, as parts of the ramp needed to be airlifted by helicopter to the top of the cliff to put it all together. Other than the ramp’s construction, determining camera placement to get the best possible shots of the stunt was needed, and it required Cruise to perform even more practice jumps to figure out the best angles and drone placements.
Weather was also a major factor in picking the best day to do the jump, as slightly different headwinds, crosswinds, and other conditions could seriously affect the outcome of the jump. Clearer weather was also needed to verify that the recordings of the jump looked good, considering if the weather was too foggy, the camera wouldn’t be able to see Cruise during his dive. After taking all of these different technical aspects into account and Cruise’s brutal training, it was time to complete “the biggest stunt in cinema history.”
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The Actual Jump
Even just watching the YouTube video of Tom Cruise performing this massive stunt isenough to make your palms sweat. Watching him drive down the long ramp before careening over the edge of the cliff, thousands of feet in the air and free-falling for hundreds more truly is a terrifying sight to see. However, seeing the canopy deploy is a sign of relief as Cruise glides safely to the ground. You think he would be done there, right? Well, you don’t know Tom Cruise then.
One of the first things Cruise says when he lands for the first time is “I think I can hold to the bike a little longer.” Cruise then goes back to the top of the cliff and jumps again, and again, and again. He completed the stunt a grand total of six times, showing his dedication to getting the perfect stunt for his movie, as well as the dedication to create a wildly entertaining movie for his fans. Creating a marketing video for a stunt like this that will be in the upcomingMission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Oneis a stroke of genius and has moviegoers looking forward to the film’s July 2023 release.
