Tom Cruise continued his global press tour for “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” as the mega movie star stopped by the film’s New York premiere on Sunday evening.
“This story is a culmination of the last 30 years,” Cruise told the packed crowed at AMC Lincoln Square, which boasts one of the best Imax screens in the country. “It’s been about seven years since we started talking about [‘Dead Reckoning – Part One’], and McQ wanted to make two of them. I was like, ‘You want to make two‘?”
McQ is Cruise’s nickname for Christopher McQuarrie, who directed 2023’s “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning” and its sequel — originally titled “Dead Reckoning – Part Two” but later renamed “The Final Reckoning.” This chapter picks up as Cruise’s operative Ethan Hunt continues his race against time to find a rogue artificial intelligence known as the Entity.
Cruise continued, “During that time we made ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and went through a pandemic and two strikes. All of us came together to will this into being. It’s a great honor and privilege to be here and entertain you.”
McQuarrie, the filmmaker of 2015’s “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” and 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” as well as 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” took a moment to praise his frequent on-screen collaborator.
“We’re all here because of Tom,” McQuarrie said. “You know him for great acting. You know him for amazing stunts. You’re going to watch a film in which he dunks on all of that repeatedly.”
Before the movie began to play, Cruise made sure the audience had their affairs in order. (After all, “The Final Reckoning” clocks in at a butt-numbing two hours and 49 minutes.) “Everyone got their popcorn?” When nobody replied, he asked again: “Does everyone have their popcorn?” This time, people responded with an enthusiastic “yes!” and a satisfied Cruise told the room: “I’m going to go get mine. I eat usually two or three buckets [during the movie].”
Prior to the screening, Cruise’s co-stars, including Simon Pegg, Angela Bassett, Nick Offerman and Tramell Tillman, as well as guests the Weeknd, Jenni “JWoww” Farley of “Jersey Shore” fame and “Summer House” stars Jesse Solomon and Carl Radke, gathered for a pre-party at a restaurant in Lincoln Center.
“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” debuted at Cannes Film Festival, where the blockbuster was greeted with a five-minute standing ovation. Paramount, the studio behind the eighth spy thriller, also hosted premieres in Tokyo and London. Though standing ovations aren’t customary for Stateside premieres, the enthusiastic New York audience rose to their feet as the end credits rolled and cheered loudly for Cruise and company.
As part of promotional efforts, Cruise has been talking up some of the “never been done before” stunts that he performs as globe-trotting Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt. And that’s saying something because the A-lister has scaled the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, for 2011’s “Ghost Protocol,” clung to the side of a plane as it flew to 1,000 feet for “Rogue Nation,” pulled off a 360-degree corkscrew dive in a helicopter for “Fallout” and skydived over 500 times for “Dead Reckoning.”
“What I want to do is really, really extreme,” Cruise he told Cannes audiences of his antics for “The Final Reckoning,” which involved going “zero-G” while walking between the wings of a biplane. “I had to train [pilots] to fly the airplane with me on the wing. It was so violent on that airplane; the amount of air force that’s coming over the wing…”
Cruise’s next mission will be getting worldwide audiences to theaters for “The Final Reckoning,” which has been positioned as the final entry in the 29-year-old film series. This movie’s predecessor, “Dead Reckoning – Part 1” (later retitled to remove the first part), was crushed by “Barbenheimer” at the box office and tapped out with $570 million worldwide against a $300 million budget. “The Final Reckoning” was reportedly even more expensive, meaning the action-adventure will need to become the highest grossing of the series to justify its massive price tag. “Fallout” currently holds that record with $791 million worldwide.