Movies - Mission Impossible Fallout: Our look back at the Paris shoot 

By Sabine, 02 july 2023

As the seventh film in the Mission Impossible saga hits theaters this July 12, we take a look back at the Paris set of Mission Impossible Fall Out. 

Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise love Paris, the City of Light. They also want to pay tribute to the city, which was ravaged by terrorist attacks in 2015. They have seen Claude Lelouch's short film "C'était un rendez-vous", in which a man in a sports car speeds through Paris without stopping to meet a woman. The Mairie de Paris facilitates access to sites such as the Arc de Triomphe and overflights of Paris for aerial shots. 

April 8, 2017, filming begins. Code name: Gemini. American film shoots have code names used by productions to avoid attracting attention. But in these months of April and May 2017, it's impossible not to notice this spectacular shoot. Over two months, the various Parisian sequences were filmed over 35 days. 

Studios de Bry-sur-Marne serves as a logistical base, notably for the forty or so SFXs, the rehearsal of certain stunts, and the preparation of vehicles, such as the truck that lands in the Seine. SFX takes care of on-set special effects, such as explosions, smoke from the Grand Palais, rain ramps... The VFX technicians rig the shots behind their computers. The shooting of a blockbuster like Mission Impossible employs over 500 French technicians a day. That's 6,000 days' work for extras, staging and control room reinforcements. 

The Grand-Palais is transformed into a giant discotheque. Shooting took place over several nights. Numerous extras were cast to dance the night away. On the first night, Tom Cruise takes the microphone from the first assistant director to thank the young people who are going to dance for several nights with the same energy. He explains that he loves to travel and that this saga allows him to discover and show a different country every time. It's rare for a star to thank those who are never credited in the credits. On the last night of shooting, a policeman is killed by a terrorist on the Champs-Elysées. Filming continues, but all doors are closed and secured. No one was allowed in or out until the alert was lifted. The next day, we head for the Quai d'Austerlitz for the truck sequence that ends up in the Seine.  

The most impressive sequence is the motorcycle chase through Paris. Tom Cruise does all the stunts himself. He doesn't wear a helmet on his motorcycle. An accident would be fatal. Early on a Sunday morning, the team went to the Arc de Triomphe to shoot the famous sequence in which Tom Cruise drives against 70 cars driven by English stuntmen. Rehearsals took place in England. For two hours, the crew filmed the sequence from different angles, using what is known as a Russian Arm or U-crane, a matte black vehicle topped by a camera-equipped crane. The sequence is shot without any special effects. As chief stuntman Wade Eastwood explains, this is the Mission Impossible spirit: spectacular stunts that remain believable.

Synopsis:
Ethan Hunt and the IMF team up with CIA assassin August Walker to prevent a catastrophe of epic proportions. Arms dealer John Lark and a group of terrorists known as the Apostles plan to use three plutonium cores to launch a simultaneous nuclear attack on the Vatican, Jerusalem and Mecca, Saudi Arabia. When the weapons go missing, Ethan and his team find themselves in a desperate race against time to prevent them falling into the wrong hands.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Based on Mission: Impossible by Bruce Geller
Produced by Tom Cruise, J. J. Abrams, Christopher McQuarrie, Jake Myers
Starring Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Michelle Monaghan, Alec Baldwin
Cinematography :Rob Hardy
Edited by Eddie Hamilton
Music by Lorne Balfe
Production companies : Skydance, TC Productions, Bad Robot Productions Alibaba Pictures
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release dates : July 12, 2018 (Paris), July 27, 2018 (United States)
Running time : 147 minutes