What is the deadliest stunt Tom Cruise ever did? New 'Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One' poster offers a glimpse

Ahead of its July premiere, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One got its first poster. Featuring lead star Tom Cruise, the image shows a glimpse of him doing “the biggest stunt in cinema history.” The upcoming feature has been directed by Cruise’s frequent collaborator, Christopher McQuarrie.

The new poster has the film’s title, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, written vertically while Cruise’s IMF agent character Ethan Hunt is shown falling off from a steep height. The bike that he was riding is inching close to its doom.

Admittedly, even though the image is still, it has a lot of action and maintains the right kind of buzz before the film’s release. To note, since day one, makers have pitched this stunt as the most dangerous thing Cruise has done and marketed Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One around it.

So, it’s natural that the first poster will contain a part of the feat. For now, Dead Reckoning Part One is slated to hit theaters on Friday, July 14, 2023, and comes five years after its prequel, Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

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Like all MI films, Tom Cruise has done his stunts in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One as well

In every Mission: Impossible (MI) movie, Cruise has done all the death-defying action and has never used a body double. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is no different.

Filmed in Norway, “the biggest stunt in cinema history” required Cruise aka Hunt to ride a bike atop a cliff and then BASE jump. The extensive preparation and final execution of the stunt were shown in a video released by Paramount Pictures, the distributor of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, last December.

Titled Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One | The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History (Tom Cruise), the almost 10-minute-long video showed an extended BTS look at the stunt in question.

In it, Christopher McQuarrie can be seen discussing a “master plan” with Tom Cruise and other experts. According to Wade Eastwood, the film's stunt coordinator, Cruise did 30 jumps per day and over 500 skydives during his year-long sky-diving training. He has also had to undergo motocross practice where the actor did more than 13,000 motocross jumps.

After the Academy Award nominee got the hang of those skills, the production team made 3D models to make an educated guess as to how, during the stunt, he would fly cutting the air so that the cameras could catch the shot.

As for the stunt, BASE jumping coach Miles Daisher opined:

“The only things you have to avoid while doing a stunt like this are serious injury or death…You're riding a motorcycle, which is pretty dangerous, on top of a ramp that's elevated off the ground, so if you fall off the ramp, that's pretty bad.”

While talking to Jimmy Kimmel a couple of weeks ago, the 60-year-old star said that he practiced jumping off a helicopter eight times to “warm up,” and did the stunt six times.

Describing the experience as “wild,” Tom Cruise narrated that the first time he rode on the ramp, it was “iced.”

He continued:

“When I let go, you have to make sure I’m not attached to the bike in any way. Even my shoelaces are taped..and you let go and you start flying and I’ve about six seconds to open that parachute before I hit the ground.”

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning is the seventh and penultimate part of the Mission: Impossible film series.

It hits theaters on July 14, 2023, while the sequel titled Dead Reckoning Part Two will be released on June 28, 2024.