• Home

Tom Cruise came, saw and loved

The wait is over. Tom Cruise’s death-defying stunts and thrilling actions are being shot on the streets of Dubai and the UAE, in typical Hollywood-style.

And, of course, with a dash of Bollywood touch as Anil Kapoor will also be starring in the movie.

According to a release, the new film in the series which has grossed $2 billion worldwide, stars Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, Josh Holloway, Michael Nyqvist, Vladimir Mashkov, Lea Seydoux and Bollywood star Anil Kapoor, who has acted in the Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire.

Producer Bryan Burk, actors Jeremy Renner, Tom Cruise and Paula Patton, director Brad Bird and producer Jeffrey Chernov pose at the press conference in Dubai on Thursday.

Yes, it’s official now, the shooting for the fourth installment of Mission Impossible — no, not MI4 any more, it has a name now: Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol — has begun.

“It’s not gonna be MI 2, MI 3, MI 4, but it’s gonna be Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol...that will be the title of this film,” Cruise told a Press conference held at the Armani Hotel, ahead of the first day of filming on Thursday.

“One of the things that I always wanted with the franchise was for it to not have a number afterwards, because I haven’t made sequels of films, and I never really thought of these films as sequels,” Cruise said. “When you see each one of them, I think it’s distinctive of each filmmaker” who has worked on the series. “It’s a series that I love doing.”

The movie will be shot in the UAE for the next three weeks, key members of the crew confirmed.

Cruise looked as dapper as ever. The media-savvy actor was joined by co-stars Renner and Patton, and producer Bryan Burk. Team MI revealed that the 828-metre-high Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, will figure prominently in the film. The buzz is that The Palm could be another likely location spot. “I’ll be spending many days, many hours on the side of this building,” Cruise said at the base of the Burj Khalifa. “I can’t give you details, but I will be up there,” he said.

Producer Bryan Burk also said that “we will be shooting in the building you are all sitting in right now”, referring to the Burj Khalifa. “To be shooting here, it’s a city I’ve always wanted to shoot in,” Cruise said of Dubai.

“Dubai is very cinematic so we are happy to be here,” Cruise said.

Film director Brad Bird said he was pleased with filming in Dubai. “We love the fact that it’s a big, new city...It has the scale we look for in these kind of movies, because these are big movies. I think that it’s almost like sets that you could never afford,” said Bird. The UAE shooting stint follows a gruelling one in Prague, where Cruise was filmed performing — as he usually does in the MI series — spine-tingling stunts.

Cruise, who is in the emirate with his family, dismissed talk that he’d taken a big upfront pay cut for this Mission: Impossible. The 48-year-old star laughed off a question about whether he was still bankable at this stage of his career. “No worries” was his brief response.

Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol is gearing up for a Christmas release in the United States next year. In the UAE, it is expected to premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival — roughly around the same time.

news@khaleejtimes.com