How Cruise Kept Final Mission: Impossible Film Alive Through Pandemic and Strikes

To make the last chapter in the long-running Mission: Impossible spy franchise, star and producer Tom Cruise had to keep the production alive through the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as two Hollywood strikes.

- Alison de Souza

NEW YORK -

Seven years later, he is finally able to unveil Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, the eighth film in a blockbuster series that began with 1996's Mission: Impossible and has earned more than US$4 billion (S$5.2 billion) at the global box office.

Now showing in Singapore cinemas, the movie sees Cruise return as indefatigable spy Ethan Hunt, who must track down a rogue artificial intelligence known as the Entity.

At the New York premiere on May 18, the 62-year-old American actor thanks his collaborators, beginning with the film's director and co-writer, Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie wrote and directed the last four movies in the series.

"The story is a culmination of the last 30 years of Mission: Impossible," says Cruise, whose role as a hotshot fighter pilot in 1986's Top Gun first established him as an action star.