Tom Cruise caused a stir at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday with the first images of the highly anticipated Mission: Impossible 7 and a spectacular stunt where the actor soars into the void on a motorbike thrown at full speed.
Read also A nine-minute clip of the next James Bond thrills CinemaCon
To woo the movie theater owners gathered for their annual meeting, Paramount Studios had mobilized Tom Cruise himself for a brief video conference call.
"This is by far the most dangerous thing I have ever tried,"
said Tom Cruise, 59, presenting this stunt.
"We have been working on it for years,"
said the actor, explaining that it is a
"motorcycle jump from a cliff followed by a base jump". “I've wanted to do this since I was little,”
he added.
Backstage footage released for the occasion showed Tom Cruise preparing for the tour de force with more than 500 parachute jumps and some 13,000 motorcycle jumps, before making his way to a Norwegian cliff. The director of the film, Christopher McQuarrie, follows the scene anxiously until the actor opens his parachute and lands safely, with this analysis:
"I think I can stay on the bike a little longer"
.
Tom Cruise, one of Hollywood's biggest stars, is known to perform most of the stunts of his roles himself.
He had also broken his ankle during the shooting of the previous film featuring the character of Ethan Hunt,
Mission Impossible: Fallout.
The actor is also at the heart of the highly anticipated sequel to
Top Gun
, which propelled him to fame in 1986.
"A strange and difficult year"
CinemaCon festival attendees had the chance on Thursday to see the first thirteen minutes of the film, where elite pilot Maverick tests a revolutionary prototype supersonic jet despite opposition from his bosses, who want to shut down the top-secret program for replace pilots with drones.
Last year CinemaCon, where Hollywood studios usually dispatch star cohorts, had to be canceled due to the coronavirus. And even though nearly 90% of North American theaters have reopened, their future is still uncertain.
"We have all had a strange and difficult year
,
"
actor Matthew McConaughey admitted in a pre-recorded video message, noting that
"few companies have suffered as much from the impact of the pandemic"
as movie theaters.
The actor presented the sequel to the animated musical film
Tous en scène 2
for Universal Studios, which also unveiled images of the new installment of the
Jurassic Park
saga
, dubbed
The World After
, and the romantic comedy of Jennifer Lopez. .
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