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Ethan Crane (Tom Cruise) dangles out of an overturned train over a vast canyon in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning
Photo via Paramount Pictures

‘I guess we did something right’: Tom Cruise’s new movie almost gave someone a heart attack during a test screening, so buckle up, kids

This time we're the ones in danger, not Cruise.

We’re used to Tom Cruise risking his life for cinema’s sake, but it looks like it’ll be us who are under threat when it comes to the action icon’s next blockbuster.

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Cruise is now 62-years-old, and yet the Top Gun star is continuing to push the bet he’s apparently made with God that he’ll survive increasingly ambitious and death-defying stunts. Fresh off his show-stopping parachute entrance to the 2024 Olympics, everyone’s favorite Scientologist is back in theaters this summer for the highly anticipated next (and possibly last) entry in the IMF saga, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. The only thing is that, this time, you might want to bring your doctor with you instead of your date.

That’s going by the alarming response one audience member had during an early test screening of the movie. Director Christopher McQuarrie has revealed that one sensitive screening attendee found the film so blood-pumping that it actually almost stopped the blood pumping to their chest.

“We had a small screening, and someone said, ‘I was suffocating throughout the entire sequence. I almost had a heart attack,'” McQuarrie recalled while chatting with Empire Magazine (via GamesRadar). “And I thought, ‘I guess we did something right.’”

What Mission: Impossible stunt almost caused someone to have a heart attack?

mission impossible dead reckoning part one
Image via Paramount

There’s no word yet on the exact nature of this Cruise stunt that was so crazy it almost caused a cardiac arrest, but this does tease that Final Reckoning is attempting to one-up the thrilling, fear-inducing train crash sequence from Dead Reckoning. That epic sequence memorably featured super-spy Ethan Crane careening his motorcycle over a cliff — a stunt that Cruise shot himself, on the first day of filming.

The fact that the unfortunate audience member mentions their sympathy “suffocating” while watching Cruise in action hints that the sequence in question may occur underwater — Dead Reckoning‘s final scene teased Crane’s next mission will be to scavenge a Russian nuclear submarine that’s marooned in the Arctic Ocean. No doubt we’ve got a behind-the-scenes featurette coming our way that’ll tell us all about how Cruise chose to submerge himself in the freezing waters for six hours or something.

Nothing makes you want to watch something more than being told you can’t watch it (as any child of parents who wouldn’t let them see certain films knows), so McQuarrie’s revelation only makes us all the more intrigued to see what Final Reckoning has to offer. Honestly, the Mission: Impossible franchise needs something to give it a bolt in the arm after Dead Reckoning underperformed, bringing in $570 million worldwide (yes, that’s underperforming for an M:I movie).

Originally scheduled to be shot back-to-back with its predecessor and release last spring, Final Reckoning — or Dead Reckoning: Part Two, as it was originally called — was ultimately delayed by an additional 12 months by the 2023 strikes. It remains to be seen whether the longer wait has left audiences hungrier for more or if they’ve forgotten there’s another Mission: Impossible on the way altogether. Either way, let’s just hope it’s not the final reckoning for anyone with a weak heart and a weakness for Tom Cruise.


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