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Tom Cruise just performed his most dangerous stunt yet – riding a motorcycle off a cliff and BASE jumping

By Caitlin O'Kane

December 21, 2022 / 10:00 AM EST / CBS News

Tom Cruise has performed another daring stunt for the "Mission: Impossible" film series. 

He called this one the most dangerous thing he's ever attempted. Shot in Norway, the stunt required Cruise to ride a motorcycle off a cliff and BASE jump — something he said he's wanted to do since he was a kid. 

Cruise, 60, is currently working on the two-part "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning" film. He's known for performing his own stunts, but this one took years to plan, he said in a video shared on Twitter. 

So excited to share what we’ve been working on. #MissionImpossible pic.twitter.com/rIyiLzQdMG — Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) December 19, 2022

In the video, writer and director Christopher McQuarrie said Cruise put together a "master plan" using experts to help execute the stunt.

He had a year of sky diving training, during which he was doing 30 jumps a day – more than 500 skydives, said Wade Eastwood, the film's stunt coordinator. He also had motocross training, doing over 13,000 motocross jumps. Once he got those skills down, the production team created 3D models to try and predict how Cruise would fly through the air during the stunt so they could film it.

Then, it came time for Cruise to execute the stunt — driving a motorcycle up a long ramp, which lead to a cliff, launching off of it and BASE jumping to the bottom. Cruise first jumped out of a helicopter over the cliff to practice, before attempting the full stunt for the cameras.

"The only things you have to avoid while doing a stunt like this are serious injury or death," BASE jumping coach Miles Daisher said. "You're riding a motorcycle, which is pretty dangerous, on top of a ramp that's elevated off the ground, so if you fall off the ramp, that's pretty bad. You're falling, so if you don't get a clean exit from the bike and you get tangled up with it, or if you don't open your parachute, you're not going to make it."

The behind-the-scenes video show Cruise not only execute the stunt once, but six times in one day. 

"Pretty much the biggest stunt in cinematic history," said BASE jumping coach John DeVore. Viewers can see the final product when part one of the film premieres July 2023. The "Mission: Impossible" series is from Paramount Pictures. (Paramount is also the parent company of CBS.)

Cruise has performed countless hair-raising stunts, including jumping off of scaffolding while filming "Mission: Impossible 6" in —  a stunt that left him injured and limping. 

Cruise has been in Europe filming the seventh and eight "Mission: Impossible" films for several years. The seventh movie was scheduled to premiere in November 2021, but the COVD-19 pandemic shut down production and was pushed to May 27, 2022,  according to Variety . The date was pushed several time after that, and the film will now premier next year. 

While shooting in the U.K. last year, Cruise, who was traveling by helicopter, needed a place to land,  BBC News reports.  He ended up landing in a family's backyard, and then let their kids go for a ride in the helicopter, making headlines.

Caitlin O'Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces "The Uplift," CBS News' streaming show that focuses on good news.

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How Tom Cruise Executed His 'Most Dangerous' Stunt in 'Mission: Impossible –Dead Reckoning Part One'

The death-defying moment in the franchise's seventh installment involves Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff

Collection Christophel/Alamy

Tom Cruise  turned up the action for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning   Part One .

While the film marks the seventh installment in the highly successful franchise, Cruise, 61, made the occasion even more special by challenging himself to perform one of his most dangerous stunts yet.

The death-defying moment involved Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff, fly off the bike, and parachute to the ground. While fans got a glimpse of the stunt through the film's action-packed trailer in May, Cruise, along with writer-director  Christopher McQuarrie , first teased the big moment in 2021 at CinemaCon.

The pair explained in a special behind-the-scenes video at the event that the stunt took 500 hours of skydiving training and 13,000 motorbike jumps to get it just right. The stunt involved Cruise being attached to a set of wires as he rides a speeding motorcycle off of a large ramp before he throws himself from the bike, backed by the safety wires attached to his back.

Speaking about its execution, McQuarrie, 54, explained in the video that it was "by far the most dangerous stunt we've ever done." The clip then ended with Cruise performing the stunt himself, with a crew member saying, " Tom Cruise  rode a motorcycle off a cliff six times today."

McQuarrie "tried to kill me," joked Cruise at the New York City premiere.

Christian Black/Paramount Pictures

The film's long-awaited release comes after multiple delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic . According to an official synopsis, it finds Cruise's Ethan Hunt as he and his team are tasked with tracking down "a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands."

During its world premiere in June , Cruise gave a speech about his passion for the franchise and filmmaking. He said in part, "It’s something that I grew up with, that made me and inspired me to dream and want to travel the world. My goal since I was little was to make movies and travel. And not just be a tourist but work in that world and understand their culture."

"Through my movies, I’ve been able to have that because everyone here has allowed me to entertain them," he continued. "It’s a privilege that I have never taken for granted."

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.

Mission: Impossible   - Dead Reckoning Part One is out now.

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It's no secret that Tom Cruise is serious about his stunt work, and in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One , he wasted no time taking on a death-defying scene!

Cruise sat down with ET's Nischelle Turner in Rome this week to preview the upcoming action flick, and he shared an interesting fact about the production, revealing that the  most dangerous stunt of his career -- a motorcycle jump off of a cliff into a base jump -- was the first-ever scene filmed for Dead Reckoning Part One .

"Well, we know either we're gonna continue with the film or we're not," Cruise said with a laugh of planning the death-defying stunt. "Let's know day one... Do we all continue, or is it a major rewrite?"

In all seriousness, the actor added, it all came down to focus. "It was years preparing. I mean, I've been riding motorcycles since I was a little kid, raced cars and spent a lot of time just with aerobatics, airplanes, helicopters and parachutes... It all kind of came to that moment."

"You have to be razor sharp when you do something like that, so it was very important as we were prepping the film that that actually was the first thing [to shoot], because I don't want to drop that and go shoot other things and then have my mind somewhere else," he continued. "Everyone was prepped, let's just get it done."

And it wasn't just the one stunt that Cruise was hyper-focused on throughout the film's production. He did his own stunt driving for an intense chase scene throughout the streets of Rome -- while his character was handcuffed to franchise newcomer Hayley Atwel l, no less -- saying the challenges he takes on as a performer are indicative of his devotion to the action-packed franchise.

"Mission: Impossible is the first film I ever produced," he recalled of the impact the films have had on his career, dating back to the 1996 original. "There's certain things that I felt that we could tell with motion, with action and with stories and to be able to travel the world, that I really wanted to- I hoped that I could be able to accomplish with Mission: Impossible."

" I really always wanted to travel the world and be part of that community and then celebrate that community," he added. " Mission: Impossible allows me to do that."

Cruise's legacy as a box-office star is without question, and he hit a new major milestone last year, when Top Gun: Maverick became his first film to bring in over a billion dollars, bringing his career total box office to over $10 billion.

"You know, it was important last summer because of what we went through in [COVID shutdowns]," he noted. "For me, I love movies on the big screen and we have, you know, our families, how it spreads out to the other platforms, I understand that, but the way that I make movies, what I love about films is -- and I've always been someone who's promoted the big screen experience -- I make movies for audiences and to see how much they enjoyed it."

"To see [ Maverick ] open up the way it did, it meant a lot to me in so many ways," Cruise continued. "I mean, for me, when we're in Cannes, I was looking at all of [the cast]. I was like, I want you to have this experience. I wanted them to have that kind of experience, that we all worked hard and we all created this together. It was very special."

And, no surprise, he's not planning to slow down anytime soon. While Cruise and Mission: Impossible writer-director Christopher McQuarrie still have some work to do on Dead Reckoning Part Two --  due out in June 2024 and set to be Cruise's final bow as Ethan Hunt -- the actor said they're already planning for what comes next.

"A few days ago, I turned to McQ like, you know, we've got to start thinking about what we're gonna do next summer when we're done with this," he shared with a laugh. "This is what I do, I make movies... I absolutely love it."

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is in theaters July 12.

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How mission: impossible 7's motorcycle cliff jump was filmed.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning continues the franchise trend of unbelievable stunts, with the latest being a dangerous motorcycle cliff jump.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning  continues the franchise's trend of outlandish, unbelievable stunts with a motorcycle cliff jump involving Tom Cruise, but how did the cast and crew film the scene? The previous entry,  Mission: Impossible - Fallout , had Cruise learning to perform a HALO jump in camera and how to fly a helicopter for its over-the-top stunts. Previous Mission: Impossible  movies saw Cruise clinging to the side of a plane as it took off, or running down the side of the world's tallest building, proving his immense dedication to his craft.

Therefore, with  Mission: Impossible   7 , fans of the franchise were left wondering how Cruise and  director Christopher McQuarrie would top the already amazing stunts performed in the series thus far. With the added caveat of the next two  Mission: Impossible films being a two-parter, a first for the franchise, speculation began on not just the stunts and action details but what the story would entail as well. However, the trailer for  Mission: Impossible 7  provides some insight into the next big stunt: a motorcycle jump off a sickeningly high cliff.

Related:  Mission: Impossible 7 Can Pay Off A Cut Ethan & Ilsa Scene & Plot Point

As with all of Tom Cruise's productions, his dedication to authentic, in-camera stunts came into play here. He and the rest of the crew had to do an immense amount of preparation for the stunt, performing it six different times in their strive for greatness. Tom Cruise, a regular for dangerous stunts , trained heavily during pre-production to prepare for the jump. His preparation included doing over 13,000 motocross jumps and over 500 skydives. Given Cruise's previous action experiences involving all manner of different vehicles, one would excuse him for under preparing. However, with Cruise doing over 30 helicopter dives each day during pre-production in order to prepare for the base jump section of the fall, it's clear this wasn't the case and he remained as committed as ever. The feat involved Cruise riding the motorcycle off a cliff, before transitioning into a free fall and base jumping with a parachute. In order to achieve this, and make sure it didn't go horribly wrong, the crew of  Mission: Impossible 7  (meaningfully titled  Dead Reckoning )  digitally tracked each of the practice runs using a GPS attached to Cruise's back. Different variables, such as the wind, were tracked accordingly so the crew could figure out the best way to shoot the jump, and also so they could keep Cruise from any potential harm.

Due to the intense nature, and potential danger, of the stunt, it was filmed during the very first day of principal photography. Cruise outlined some of the ways the stunt could have gone wrong (via  Empire ):

“If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp... The helicopter [filming the stunt] was a problem, because I didn’t want to be hammering down that ramp at top speed and get hit by a stone. Or if I departed in a weird way, we didn’t know what was going to happen with the bike. I had about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don’t want to get tangled in the bike. If I do, that’s not going to end well.”

Luckily, this  dangerous Mission: Impossible 7  motorcycle stunt went off without a hitch. Cruise's intense preparation and training, as well as the professionalism of the rest of the cast and crew saw that the day went smoothly, capturing the franchise's latest death-defying sequence without any major issues. Tom Cruise put his dangerous motorcycle jumps to the test, driving off the Norweigan mountaintop on which the sequence was filmed, with camera-mounted drones and helicopters catching the fall and base jump all on the first day of shooting.

If Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie have proven anything on  Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation , Fallout,  and now  Dead Reckoning , it's that their eye for breathtaking stunts hasn't faltered. Whether this motorcycle jump will be the main stunt of the film, or if the duo has anything else hidden up their sleeves remains to be seen. However, if this one sequence is anything to go by, it proves that  Mission: Impossible 7   will be another stellar entry in one of cinema's greatest modern action franchises .

Next:  Mission: Impossible 8's Cruise Sendoff Explains Returning Character Mystery

Key Release Dates

Mission: impossible - dead reckoning part one, mission: impossible - dead reckoning - part two.

Tom Cruise did that motorcycle stunt in ‘Mission: Impossible’ on Day 1 — here’s why

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More than half a year before the release of the upcoming movie “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One,” Paramount Pictures made sure audiences got to see Tom Cruise once again risking his life.

Cruise’s mind-blowing stunts have become a signature of “ Mission: Impossible ” films, each one seemingly topping the next. The key stunt in the franchise’s seventh installment involves Cruise driving a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff, dismounting and parachuting into a Norwegian valley. With the drop of its behind-the-scenes footage in December , the studio billed it as “the biggest stunt in cinema history.”

Though the moment has already been watched on YouTube more than 13 million times, and 30 million more times in the film’s trailers, it’s among the film’s most anticipated scenes. After all, we still don’t know how the stunt fits within the plot — What could be so dire that agent Ethan Hunt must jump off a cliff?

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While answers won’t come until the movie’s theatrical release July 12, we now know that the risky stunt was the first thing Cruise did on Day 1 of filming, which began in 2020. And it was all about risk assessment.

In a recent interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Cruise said they started with the scene, in part, to allow the cast and crew to see whether he would be able to star in the $290-million film. After all, he could either get injured or die — or both.

“Well, we know we’re either going to continue with the film or not,” Cruise said, letting out a laugh. “Let’s know Day 1, what is gonna happen: Do we all continue, or is it a major re-run?”

Cruise added that he wanted to make sure his mind was clear enough to focus solely on the stunt.

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Aug. 4, 2020

“You have to be razor sharp for something like that; I don’t want to drop that and shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else,” Cruise said. “You don’t want to be waking up in the middle of the night, ‘It’s still, I still, I still,’ and it has that effect.”

Cruise is no stranger to aerial stunts with a high probability of death. The “Top Gun” actor said preparing for the recent stunt “was years of planning,” a culmination of all the training he’s done with motorcycles, cars and aerobatics.

In the franchise’s last film, “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” (2018), Cruise jumped into a helicopter in midflight , taking the controls to chase another helicopter. In the same movie, he parachuted from a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III from 25,000 feet, close to five miles up, becoming “the first actor” to do so in a major motion picture, according to Paramount (most skydiving attempts occur at 10,000 feet).

In 2011 for “ Ghost Protocol ,” the “Jerry McGuire” actor climbed along the exposed walls of the world’s largest building, the Burj Khalifa of Dubai. And in 2015 for “Rogue Nation,” Cruise hung off the side of an Airbus A400M Atlas as it was taking off, a stunt that veteran stunt coordinator and frequent Cruise collaborator Wade Eastwood called “a stressful experience.”

The recent motorcycle stunt, which Cruise had apparently repeated six times, was no exception. Though the film’s computer-generated images make Cruise appear to be jumping off the rocky surface of the cliff, the scene required a large ramp to be built.

While Cruise is seen atop the motorcycle in the behind-the-scenes video, accelerating off the ramp, a helicopter and drone fly overhead to gather footage. The film’s crew, including director Christopher McQuarrie, are huddled in a nearby tent, faces glued to a set of monitors. After he abandons the bike and hangs in the open air, Cruise releases his parachute and the crew erupts in cheers.

“The only thing you have to avoid when doing a stunt like this are serious injury or death,” Eastwood, who has managed stunts for the last three “Mission Impossible” films, said in the BTS video. “You’re falling. If you don’t get a clean exit from the bike and you get tangled up with it, if you don’t open your parachute, you’re not gonna make it.”

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See Tom run. See Tom jump.

July 13, 2018

The scene wasn’t the only stressful one to shoot: Cruise said he also worried about a car chase that involved him handcuffed to a small car, steering with one hand while drifting along the cobblestone streets of Rome, with his co-star Hayley Atwell in the passenger seat.

“It’s plenty of challenges,” Cruise said with a wide grin, laughing once again.

“Dead Reckoning” had its world premiere Sunday at the Auditorium Conciliazione in Rome with Cruise and other cast members, including Atwell and Vanessa Kirby , in attendance. “Part Two” is expected to be released in June 2024. Filming wrapped in September for what has been rumored to be Cruise’s final appearance in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.

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Watch Tom Cruise Break Down His ‘Most Dangerous’ Stunt Ever for New ‘Mission: Impossible’

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Tom Cruise is proving that no mission is too impossible.

The “Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part I” star shared a behind-the-scenes video of his stuntwork on the first installment of his farewell to character Ethan Hunt.

“So excited to share what we’ve been working on,” Cruise tweeted.

“Dead Reckoning” is the first half of the conclusion to the 1996 film franchise. Cruise has played undercover CIA agent Ethan Hunt for close to 30 years, with “Mission: Impossible 7” arriving in theaters July 14, 2023, soon followed by “Mission: Impossible 8” out June 28, 2024.

The stunt video shows Cruise training to achieve the  most dangerous stunt of his career, with him riding a motorcycle off a cliff. “This is far and away the most dangerous thing we’ve ever attempted,” Cruise says in the video filmed while in Norway for production in 2020.

“It all comes down to one thing: the audience,” Cruise adds.

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The “Eyes Wide Shut” alum trained in motocross and base jumping for months leading up to the filmed stunt.

“I had about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don’t want to get tangled in the bike,” Cruise previously told Empire magazine about the jaw-dropping feat. “If I do, that’s not going to end well.”

Of course, that’s not the only cutting-edge stunt Cruise masters for “Mission: Impossible.” A first look at the film during Paramount Pictures’ showcase at CinemaCon earlier this year captured Cruise holding onto a plane while flying over South Africa. Cruise also recently thanked fans for their support in a video of himself jumping out of a plane .

“The ‘MI’ series really does represent the pinnacle of filmmaking excellence,” Paramount president Brian Robbins said earlier this year at CinemaCon. “And we have no doubt that this new picture will set the bar even higher.”

Robbins continued, “After five release dates and a whole bunch of rumors where this movie would end up, we are finally ready to bring this phenomenal movie to where it always belonged, and that is your theaters.”

Director Christopher McQuarrie helms the upcoming film, which will exclusively have a theatrical release due in part to Cruise’s urging. Production for “Dead Reckoning Part I” was repeatedly halted by the COVID-19 pandemic but eventually wrapped in September 2021. The budget reportedly ballooned upwards of $290 million during production, with additional funds allocated to finish post-production on the action epic.

So excited to share what we’ve been working on. #MissionImpossible pic.twitter.com/rIyiLzQdMG — Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) December 19, 2022

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Watch Tom Cruise complete ‘biggest stunt in cinema history’ with death-defying jump

Tom Cruise is soaring to new heights.

The legendary actor appears in a new video from the making of the upcoming “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” that gives fans an “extended behind the scenes look at the biggest stunt in cinema history ,” according to Paramount Pictures’ description of the clip on YouTube.

The video, which runs more than nine minutes long, opens with a breathtaking overhead view of a mountain in Hellesylt, Norway, with Cruise explaining that he will ride a motorcycle off of a cliff that turns into a base jump.

“I’ve wanted to do it since I was a little kid,” he says.

Director Christopher McQuarrie says Cruise helped facilitate the stunt by getting together a team of experts in various fields to make sure it goes off without a hitch.

There are clips of Cruise skydiving and riding a motorcycle on a motorcross track built specifically for the stunt, while viewers learn how different models were constructed to properly gauge the angle Cruise would be diving off the bike. There was even a GPS chip to keep track of all of his jumps and gather a wide range of data, including how the wind would affect each jump.

“I have to get so good at this that there’s just no way that I miss my marks,” he says.

“You train and drill every little aspect over and over and over and over again,” he adds while we see clips of him diving and riding his motorcycle.

And Cruise apparently did just that, performing more than 500 dives and 13,000 jumps on the motorcycle.

Around the 7-minute mark, Cruise takes off on the motorcycle, driving off a ramp and then pulling a parachute to the ground below in a mind-blowing effort.

“This is far and away the most dangerous thing we’ve ever attempted,” McQuarrie says.

You can see for yourself how the stunt looks on the big screen when “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” opens in theaters July 2023.

Drew Weisholtz is a reporter for TODAY Digital, focusing on pop culture, nostalgia and trending stories. He has seen every episode of “Saved by the Bell” at least 50 times, longs to perfect the crane kick from “The Karate Kid” and performs stand-up comedy, while also cheering on the New York Yankees and New York Giants. A graduate of Rutgers University, he is the married father of two kids who believe he is ridiculous.

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Watch Tom Cruise ride a motorcycle off a cliff for dangerous Mission: Impossible stunt

The team behind the upcoming action sequel call it "the biggest stunt in cinema history."

Christian Holub is a writer covering comics and other geeky pop culture. He's still mad about 'Firefly' getting canceled.

Tom Cruise has done it again.

Shortly after jumping out of a plane while thanking fans for supporting Top Gun: Maverick this year, Cruise and the team behind his next Mission: Impossible film have released a new behind-the-scenes clip highlighting one of the action sequel's most impressive stunts. The stunt finds Cruise riding a motorcycle off of a cliff before performing a base jump.

"I've wanted to do it since I was a little kid," Cruise says in the video. "It all comes down to one thing: The audience."

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One writer/director Christopher McQuarrie adds that the stunt required coordination between different disciplines. As such, Cruise put together "a master plan" with input from a variety of specialists so he could practice both motocross and base jumping.

Cruise apparently performed more than 500 sky dives and over 13,000 motocross jumps to prepare for the stunt, and this video features footage of many of them.

Recording such an intricate stunt requires proper technology. McQuarrie says that "even two years ago, the cameras didn't exist" to capture Cruise's feat on film, but now the team has them in hand. The team also relied on computer simulations to determine the right angle to build their ramp.

"How do we involve the audience? I just want to give them that thrill," Cruise says.

"Pretty much the biggest stunt in cinema history," base jumping coach John DeVore says. "Tom Cruise just rode a motorcycle off a cliff six times today."

Watch the epic video above. Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is set to hit theaters in July 2023, with the sequel following in 2024.

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Related content:

• Tom Cruise wishes fans 'safe and happy holidays' before jumping out of plane on Mission: Impossible set
• Breaking down the trailer for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
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Mission: Impossible 7 will feature Tom Cruise's most dangerous stunt ever

By Sam Moore

Most people have limits – but then, most people are not Tom Cruise . In the name of cinema, the diminutive action legend has flown a real fighter jet, hung off the side of the world’s tallest building and strapped himself to the wing of a plane as it was taking off. Now, if that wasn’t enough, he claims Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One will feature his “most dangerous” stunt yet.

In a newly-released behind the scenes featurette, we see Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie plot, plan and execute a stunt that has to be seen to be believed. The crux of the stunt is Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt will ride a motorbike off a very real cliff before base jumping his way to safety and hopefully not dying in the process. No harnesses and no doubles were used in the making of the scene, meaning if Tom Cruise’s parachute doesn’t deploy, Tom Cruise goes splat (but would probably still survive).

As the nine minute clip shows, the process of putting together such a stunt is anything but simple. As part of his training, Cruise completed over 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps and at one point brags he knows how fast he is going on the bike from its sound and vibrations. The team also make use of simulations and data to perfect the science of how steep to build the ramp and where to place the cameras.

McQuarrie says the stunt wouldn’t even have been possible two years ago due to technological limitations but the scene has apparently been a dream of Cruise’s for some time.

In typical Mission: Impossible tradition, the bike ride to base jump into an actual canyon is the first scene Cruise shot for the film. In a moment as tense as one of the series’ huge set-pieces itself, we watch McQuarrie and the crew watch Cruise perform the stunt for the first time and absolutely nail it – much to the relief of the now very grey haired director.

They got the shot first time but Cruise thinks he can do better and hold on to the bike a little longer before it plummets thousands of feet below. So he goes again and again and again. As base jumping coach John DeVore says with unbridled glee: "Tom Cruise just rode a motorcycle off a cliff six times today."

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Watch Tom Cruise Perform His ‘Most Dangerous Stunt’ Ever For ‘Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning’

The 60-year-old Cruise jumped a motorcycle off a cliff into a freefall six times for the latest “M:I” movie.

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Tom Cruise’s movie stunt performances are so insane, they’re worthy of their own mini docs.

Paramount Pictures recently released a behind-the-scenes look at “The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History,” featuring Cruise jumping a motorcycle off a cliff for Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning Part One .

“This is far and away the most dangerous thing we’ve ever attempted,” said the 60-year-old actor. “We’re going to shoot it in Norway and it will be a motorcycle jump off a cliff into a base jump. I’ve been wanting to do it since I was a little kid.”

Cruise trained intensely for the feat. He completed 500 sky dives so he’d be comfortable finding cameras in freefall. Cruise also became proficient at motocross, completing 13,000 jumps, some of which were over 70- to 80-foot tabletops.

“You tell him something, and he just locks it in,” base jumping coach Miles Daisher said. “His sense of spatial awareness, he’s the most aware person I’ve ever met.”

“I have to get so good at this that there’s just no way that I miss my marks,” Cruise added. And even if he does his part right, capturing it on camera presents another set of obstacles.

“Coming up with the stunt is only one of the technical challenges,” said director Christopher McQuarrie. “The other is putting a camera in place that you can see where Tom is doing it.”

“Finding the right lens, the right platform, the right medium. Even two years ago, the cameras didn’t exist that would allow us to do what we are trying to do today,” McQuarrie added.

With base jumping and motocross skills honed, Cruise began training on a replica of the jump, launching himself off ramp into a quarry filled with impact-absorbing cardboard boxes. Multiple 3D models were used to calculate his trajectory, and data provided by a GPS tracker rigged to Cruise was used to plan the real jump.

“The only things you really have to avoid while doing a stunt like this is serious injury or death,” joked stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood.

“You’re riding a motorcycle, which is pretty dangerous, on top of a ramp that’s elevated off the ground, so if you come off the ramp, that’s going to be pretty bad. If you don’t get a clean exit form the bike…if you don’t open your parachute, you’re not going to make it.”

After a near-perfect first attempt, Cruise said, “I think I can hold to the bike a little longer.” In total, he did the stunt six times.

“This is far and away the most dangerous stunt we have ever attempted,” McQuarrie said. “The only thing that scares me more is what we have planned for Mission 8 .”

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is set to be released in theaters on July 13, 2023.

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So excited to share what we’ve been working on. #MissionImpossible pic.twitter.com/rIyiLzQdMG — Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) December 19, 2022

He showed us how he made the mission possible.

Tom Cruise revealed his “most dangerous stunt” ever in a behind-the-scenes feature for his upcoming film, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” in a clip posted Wednesday on Twitter .

Days after posting a video jumping out of a plane , the “Top Gun” actor shared a 9½-minute-long clip showing him driving a motorcycle off of a cliff.

“This is far and away the most dangerous thing we’ve ever attempted,” said the 60-year-old actor. “We’re going to shoot it in Norway and it will be a motorcycle jump off a cliff into a base jump.”

According to Cruise, he has wanted to engage in the risky business since a young age.

Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote and directed the film, said that Cruise, who insists on doing all his own stunt work , put everything from the plan to the stunt team together.

Stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood revealed that Cruise went through “a year of base training , advanced sky-dive training, a lot of canopy skills, a lot of tracking.”

Base jumping coach Miles Daisher described Cruise as an “amazing individual.”

“You tell him something, and he just locks it in,” Daisher added. “His sense of spatial awareness, he’s the most aware person I’ve ever met.”

“I have to get so good at this that there’s just no way that I miss my marks,” joked Cruise.

The “Jerry Maguire” star said that he did 30 jumps a day to perfect every aspect of the stunt. The video said that he has performed over 13,000 in total.

“Coming up with the stunt is only one of the technical challenges,” said McQuarrie. “The other is putting a camera in place that you can see where Tom is doing it.”

“Finding the right lens, the right platform, the right medium. Even two years ago, the cameras didn’t exist that would allow us to do what we are trying to do today,” McQuarrie added.

Cruise explained that the key to getting the shot is consistency as well as hitting the right speed.

“We have to be able to consistently predict where Tom will be in three-dimensional space,” McQuarrie noted.

According to the video, Cruise performed the stunt six times a day.

“This is far and away the most dangerous stunt we have ever attempted,” McQuarrie said. “The only thing that scares me more is what we have planned for ‘Mission 8.'”

Cruise recently wished his fans happy holidays and thanked them for their support — and then jumped out of a helicopter.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is set to be released in theaters on July 13, 2023.

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Tom Cruise says 'Mission: Impossible 7' motorcycle stunt was shot on the first day of production so everyone knew if they could keep going or if it needed a 'major rewrite'

• Tom Cruise said the motorcycle stunt was done on the first day of shooting so everyone knew how to go forward.
• "Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?" he told Entertainment Tonight.
• The director told Empire that doing it early also let production figure out how to use the stunt in the plot.

Tom Cruise says there's a simple explanation for why his thrilling stunt of driving a motorcycle off a cliff was completed on the very first day of production on "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1" — there would need to be a major change to the story if it wasn't successful.

"We know either we will continue with the film or we're not. Let's know day one!" Cruise told "Entertainment Tonight" (at the 2:00 mark). "Let us know day one what is going to happen: Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?"

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"I was training and I was ready," Cruise continued. "You have to be razor sharp when you're doing something like that. It was very important as we were prepping the film that it was actually the first thing. I don't want to drop that and go shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else. Everyone was prepped. Let's just get it done."

The stunt is the latest thrilling moment in the "M:I" franchise that has seen Cruise do everything from hang onto the side of a plane as it takes off to perform a HALO jump with a broken ankle.

Though those stunts were all extremely dangerous for Cruise to pull off, this one might be the most death-defying to date for the superstar.

The stunt has Cruise driving a motorcycle off a cliff in Norway. Then in mid-air, he disposes of the bike and free-falls until he opens his parachute.

To train for it, Cruise did 500 skydives and over 13,000 motocross jumps. And that wasn't just so Cruise had the skill and comfort to pull off the stunt; the training also made it possible for director Christopher McQuarrie and his crew to map out camera angles to capture it. 

McQuarrie recently told Empire a stunt like this has to be done at the start of production because then plot points can be written into the movie as to why Cruise's character Ethan Hunt jumped off the cliff in the first place.

"Doing that on day one gave us all the time in the world to understand why he was doing what he was doing," McQuarrie said. "If we sat around and tried to figure out these movies the old-fashioned way, you'd never find it, simply because it's such a living, breathing thing."

Cruise ended up doing the stunt six times on the first day of shooting. That meant a lot of cleanup.

Insider has learned from a source close to production that after each jump, a team at ground level in Norway was responsible for recovering and disposing of all the broken pieces of motorcycle that shattered on impact before the next jump was attempted.

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Mission: Impossible 7 Will Have Maybe the Biggest Stunt in Movie History

Tom cruise trained an entire year to film just one shot for the may 2022 release..

Much like the Fast and Furious movies , the Mission: Impossible movies are always raising the bar. First Tom Cruise climbs up the Burj Khalifa, then hangs off the side of an airplane, then dives out of an airplane higher than should be humanly possible. And that trend will continue with Mission: Impossible 7 , currently scheduled for release May 27, 2022.

During Paramount’s presentation at CinemaCon 2021 , exhibitors were treated to a 10-minute video detailing Cruise’s latest stunt. This one will see him drive a motorcycle off an actual cliff, jump off the motorcycle in mid-air, freefall a few seconds, and then parachute to the bottom of a huge gorge. And, of course, it’s actually Tom Cruise doing this. Not a stunt person. So he had to practice and train a lot to be able to pull if off.

Over the course of a year, Cruise completed about 500 skydives, which sometimes included 30 in one day, as well as 13,000 motocross jumps on a specially constructed track. All of this was done to make sure Cruise was a complete expert at not just base jumping and parachuting but motocross too. He’d need to be all of those things to pull off the stunt on the day.

But just doing the stunt isn’t enough. Director Christopher McQuarrie and his team needed to capture it. So, as Cruise was training, McQuarrie and his team were testing new cameras, lenses, and brand new technologies and drones to make sure they’d be able to capture the stunt as closely as possible. (You don’t have Tom Cruise train for an entire year if audiences aren’t going to actually be able to see him do the stunt on screen.) McQuarrie’s team also built a model of the ramp that would eventually be used in a quarry and had Cruise run simulations with a special GPS chip. This way they could calculate and predict all the different trajectories where Cruise might exit the bike, where the bike would land, everything.

Meanwhile, the actual ramp had to be built in Norway, in a place so remote every single piece had to be flow in by helicopter. Months and months of construction and preparation all led up to Day One of filming Mission: Impossible 7, which is when they’d knock the film’s biggest stunt out of the way immediately. Here’s an image of that ramp.

And on that day—as you can imagine, since you haven’t seen any news stories about the demise of one of cinema’s biggest stars—all the training and preparation paid off. Cruise pulled off the stunt not one, not two, but six times , each time trying to hold onto the bike more, pull his parachute a little later, anything to make it more dramatic and exciting.

In the end, McQuarrie said the only thing scarier than performing what his team deemed the biggest stunt in film history, what what they had planned for Mission: Impossible 8 .

Wondering where our RSS feed went? You can pick the new up one here .

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Some people say I love you, Tom Cruise jumps out of airplanes

How many times do you think he did that for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning?

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A riddle: What comes first, the Tom Cruise movie, or the Tom Cruise stunt?

In a statement that is both a little bit strange and quintessentially Tom Cruise, the 60-year-old actor opens up a behind-the-scenes video for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One by saying he’s wanted to do what they’re about to show off “since I was a little kid.” Namely, the film’s biggest, most dangerous stunt — a motorcycle jump off a Norwegian cliff, which then launches into a BASE jump.

After blinking however many times it takes to process tiny Tommy Cruise imagining death-defying leaps for fun, the impressive scope of the stunt sinks in as Cruise, Dead Reckoning writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, and their elaborate stunt team detail the intense amount of prep work that the stunt entails. “Prep work” in this context requires a truly surprising number of skydives on Cruise’s part — including a few jumps he does “just to warm up” when it’s finally time to film the big stunt.

As the consummate movie star, Tom Cruise approaches film promotion with clinical efficiency, flashing his megawatt smile and talking about how great it is to entertain us, the viewers, because movies are just The Best. He’s about as good at this as he is at not talking about Scientology (which is to say: extremely) but 21st Century Tom is also a reserved Tom, here to do a job and do it well.

Not so here: Tom Cruise is having so much fun prepping for this stunt, appearing as if this is the thing he truly wants to do with his career: not make movies, but dream up deranged stunts, and then wield his considerable power and influence in Hollywood to let him spend a couple months doing said stunts. In exchange, he’ll give the money people a movie, I guess. (His director gets to have mild panic attacks every time he jumps out of an airplane.)

Jumping out of airplanes is so completely Tom Cruise’s love language that it’s how he chose to thank fans for their support of Top Gun: Maverick, casually exiting an aircraft thousands of feet above South Africa while giddily addressing the camera about how entertaining us all is “the honor of a lifetime.”

A special message from the set of #MissionImpossible @MissionFilm pic.twitter.com/sfnWWluLyl — Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) December 18, 2022

If there is a god, Tom Cruise is gonna piss them off one day.

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20 Thrilling Behind-The-Scenes Facts From Tom Cruise's Biggest Films

F or nearly 40 years, Tom Cruise has been one of the biggest movie stars in the world. From his breakout role in Top Gun to the franchise lead in Mission Impossible , few stars boast the resume that Cruise has. He's also worth a cool $500 million. He's kind of a big deal. With four decades of movies under his belt, it's fair to assume a lot of interesting things have happened behind the scenes. Here are the craziest Tom Cruise movie secrets you need to know!

He Won't Sign Onto A Movie Unless He Gets To Do His Own Stunts

Tom Cruise famously performs the most dangerous stunts in all his movies. Watch any Mission Impossible movie, and it's shocking how much danger the action star is willing to put himself in. Cruise reportedly refuses to sign onto movies that won't let him do his stunts.

Say a movie wants to cast Cruise but won't let him jump from high rise to high rise for a critical chase scene. The producers better start looking for a different, more risk-averse actor. Tom Cruise feels the need, the need for speed!

He Took Lead Role In Valkyrie Because He Looked Like The Real Person

The movie Valkyrie is based on the true story of Colonel von Stauffenberg's assassination attempt on Hitler during World War II. When Cruise was offered the role, there was no sales pitch that convinced him to sign on. Instead, he noticed that he bared a striking resemblance to the German soldier.

Cruise was sold, proving sometimes looks are all that matters. The movie was a moderate success, earning $200 million worldwide. Doing his own stunts has its downfalls.

Mission Impossible: Fallout Literally Broke Tom Cruise

Mission Impossible: Fallout came close to missing its summer 2018 release date after Tom Cruise broke his ankle performing a stunt. The film had to take a break from filming in 2017 after Cruise couldn't stick his landing after a scary jump. The hiatus put the movie's release in serious doubt.

Never doubt Tom Cruise, though. After a brutal seven-week recovery, cameras were able to roll again. He also continued punishing his body by doing his stunts. All his hard work paid off. A seventh movie in the profitable franchise is already being planned.

The Last Samurai Almost Killed Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise earned an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Last Samurai . If it wasn't for his co-star saving his life, we'd be writing a very different article right now. Using real samurai swords rigged for safety was a bad idea when one of the rigs broke.

The sword came one inch from Cruise's neck before Hiroyuki Sanada stopped it. That reminds us of the helicopter scene at the end of the first Mission Impossible ! Somehow it always comes back to Ethan Hunt.

Anne Rice Hated His Casting In Interview With A Vampire

Without author Anne Rice, there would be no Interview With The Vampire . Having written the book, she was not happy to see the film cast Tom Cruise in the role of the vampire Lestat. She was so upset with his selection that she publicly criticized Cruise and everyone involved with the film.

After the movie came out, Rice changed her tune. It turns out Tom Cruise was perfect for Lestat, and he proved it with his performance. To apologize, Rice bought a two-page ad in Daily Variety praising Cruise's portrayal of her most famous vampire.

Les Grossman Was Created For Tropic Thunder By Cruise

When Ben Stiller was struggling to write Tropic Thunder he had Tom Cruise read the script. Cruise suggested he include a movie executive in the film as a way to create pressure on the characters. Later, he decided to play the role of Les Grossman himself, under two very odd conditions.

The first condition was the character have fat hands. The second condition was that the bald and overweight studio executive be a dancer. And that is how one of the most memorable characters in movie history was created.

The Iconic Risky Business Dance Was Adlibbed

Even if you've never seen Risky Business , you've probably seen Tom Cruise's infamous underwear dance. According to the actor, he made up the routine himself, on the spot, "I just ad-libbed that," he said during an interview .

But how did he stick the landing on his slide to enter the scene? As he explains, "I dusted the floor and then put stick (tape) on the other side so I would get the center frame on that and wore the socks."

The Mummy Was A Real Monster Behind The Scenes

The Mummy was supposed to start Universal's "Dark Universe." That is until Tom Cruise got his hands on it. According to reports, Cruise took over every aspect of the film, from the story to the direction, and even the editing.

Despite having a team hired by Universal, Cruise brought in his own editor and screenwriter, then wrangled control of the direction away from Alex Kurtzman. For all his meddling, Cruise's version of The Mummy earned terrible reviews and scared audiences away. Made for $190 million, the film only grossed $80 million stateside.

Cruise Destroyed A $100,000 Camera Filming Days Of Thunder

Tom Cruise's "need for speed" is iconic, and it got the better of him while filming Days of Thunder . Playing NASCAR driver Cole Trickle, Cruise drove his stock car during several scenes. I

n one scene he lost control of the car and crashed into a wall, destroying a $100,000 camera in the process.

He Didn't Get Paid For Minority Report

Tom Cruise was so passionate to film the 2002 film Minority Report with Steven Spielberg that he refused to take a paycheck. Spielberg refused money also, something he claimed to have on his last eight films. Instead of getting money upfront, the pair cut a deal to earn 15 percent of the movie's gross.

Minority Report made $358 million worldwide, netting Cruise and Spielberg around $54 million each. That's pretty amazing. They took a chance on a passion project and it paid off big time!

He Was A Passenger In A Car Accident During Filming For Edge Of Tomorrow

For Edge Of Tomorrow , Emily Blunt had to drive a van with Tom Cruise as her passenger. The van needed to be seen shaking for one particular scene, so producers had Blunt make a hard turn at a pretty high speed. But she lost control and the van crashed into a tree.

She was upset that she could have injured (or even killed) Cruise, but fortunately, they both walked away unharmed. And even laughed about the incident later.

One Stunt He Didn't Perform

We know that Tom Cruise prefers to perform even the most dangerous stunts himself. But according to director Martin Scorsese, there was one stunt that he didn't complete when filming the 1986 drama The Color of Money .

His character had to perform a bunch of complicated pool shots, which wasn't a problem for Cruise. Except for one: a shot where his ball had to leap over two others and sink a third. Scorsese said that he thinks Cruise could have made the shot but it would have taken two days. And that's just too long during movie production, so an expert was brought in to do the shot.

He Broke His Thumb Making The Outsiders

The 1983 coming-of-age drama The Outsiders featured a fight between two rival gangs, the Greasers and the Socs. Things got pretty out of control during filming and one of Cruise's thumbs was broken in the scuffle.

He wasn't the only one to get hurt in the fight, either; two of Cruise's fellow actors were also injured. Tom Howell got a black eye and Emilio Estevez's lip was cut. That must have been quite a brawl!

He Lost A Lot Of Weight For Risky Business

The creators of Risky Business really wanted Tom Cruise to be as baby-faced as possible. To prepare for the role, he got serious about dropping weight fast. He told People that he followed a strict eating plan and jogged daily in the brutal Florida sunshine for five weeks. And then when he hit his target weight, he stopped exercising completely "so I could put on a little layer of baby fat."

"[Joel Goodson is] a very vulnerable person,” Tom explained. “I didn't want any physical defenses up for him. No muscle armor at all.”

Tom Cruise Has An Impressive Set Of Lungs

For 2015's Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation , Tom Cruise had to hold his breath for almost six and a half minutes! We knew he did all his own stunts but this might be one of the craziest of them. He called the experience unpleasant but explained his training technique to EW .

"You get rid of the regulator, get rid of the bubbles, get on the side and we wanted to do it one shot, so they were very, very long shots," he said. “I'd have to hold it consistently, you know safely, up to four minutes almost for every take.”

He Really Sang In Rock Of Ages

For the 2012 musical Rock of Ages , Tom Cruise insisted on singing his own parts. Of course, he did, right? He trained for four months, up to five hours each day to perfect his voice.

Cruise also filmed the scene where he sang "Pour Some Sugar On Me" while Def Leppard (the band that originally performed the song) watched. The guy just doesn't like to make things easy for himself.

Born On The Third Of July

In the 1989 war drama Born on the Fourth of July , Tom Cruise played a real-life Vietnam War veteran named Ron Kovic. Kovic was actually born on the 4th of July, as the title indicates.

It turns out that Cruise and Kovic almost share the birthday. Cruise was born on July 3, though, just a day early. Audiences didn't mind the discrepancy (as if they were even aware of it), as the film pulled in $161 million worldwide.

He Wasn't Expecting Emily Blunt To Kiss Him In Edge Of Tomorrow

Maybe he hadn't read the script thoroughly, because it sounds like Tom Cruise was surprised when Emily Blunt kissed him during filming for Edge of Tomorrow . She opened up about the moment to BBC Radio . "I mean, [it was] great. I don't think he was expecting it. I just sort of planted one on him," she said.

Blunt continued, "I think he was a bit taken aback. He was like, 'Oh my god! This is what we're doing.' Well, Tom had read the scene but he hadn't really read the stage directions. There were some new pages."

He Holds A Huge Box Office Record

We already know that his movies rake in tons of money at the box office, but Tom Cruise holds another distinction in that area. He became the first actor ever to star in five consecutive movies that each made more than $100 million in the United States.

The films were A Few Good Men (1992), The Firm (1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), and Jerry Maguire in 1996. That's a pretty good run for the money.

Cruise Inspired A Character In A Movie He Wasn't Even In

Although he's been in some live-action Disney movies, Tom Cruise hasn't yet voiced an animated character for the studio. However, he was the inspiration for a very famous Disney prince. Can you guess which one? Turns out that Aladdin was based on the actor!

While providing commentary for the 2004 DVD release of the film, producers revealed that executive Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the animation should be modeled after Cruise because of his "iconic hero" look.