Back in February, I posted a positive test-screening reaction for ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning’ which was said to be a 3-hour cut.
“INCREDIBLE. Nerve-jangling. A lot of cliff jumping. Steep mountain riding. “Tom Cruise is certifiably nuts,” one person told me.
Now here’s another reaction from a test-screening that occurred last night. It’s another positive one:
Work in progress cut of Mission Impossible:7 screened in NJ tonight. Audience responded really well, the action sequences are much longer than usual it felt like so I could see why one of the execs wanted it cut down but the pacing is fine, last action sequence is a big highlight in the franchise. Hayley Atwell serves a large part of the story and the villian is an AI…will leave the rest for yall to watch come July. It’s probably 90%/95% done, just some slight green/blue screen stuff that needs to be fixed and touched up in post but nothing super major.
This latest cut is still said to be just under 3 hours. Another person sent me a reaction that I cannot print, and it’s just as glowing. I think Paramount has a hit here.
Last month, Bob Bakish, president of Paramount, revealed that he’s not down with the 180 minute cut of the film:
“I haven’t seen all of ‘MI:7,’ but I’ve seen a bunch of it. We actually just did the first test screening for an audience last week, and the audience lost their mind. And it’s still too long, they’ve got to cut it. But the movie is insane. It’s like a complete thrill ride. And Tom, he’s very good.”
Christopher McQuarrie is back directing this one, but if he and Cruise believe this 3-hour cut is the bees knees, then, of course, they shouldn’t snip a single damn frame.
There have been constant delays in relation to ‘Dead Reckoning,’ especially due to the pandemic’s effect on global supply-chain, production workers and locations.
The film started shooting in Italy on February 2020, but it had to stop and start production seven different times since then. Notice the location, Italy, that was the epicentre of COVID during the early months of the pandemic. Terrible luck.
In contrast, the most recent film in the series, 2018’s “Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” cost $190 million to make. This one had its budget balloon to $290 million.
The end result is that M:I7 has been delayed to summer 2023 because the film ends on a cliff-hanger, and Tom Cruise wanted to finish making the 8th film before releasing the 7th. The plan is to have both films serve as a sendoff for Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character.
Remember when, back in August, we learned “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” would be playing in only around 350 U.S. theaters, "maybe fewer"? Well, it's fewer. A lot fewer.