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New 'Mission: Impossible' Video Captures Tom Cruise Attempting a Death-Defying Stunt

"The only things you have to avoid in a stunt like this is serious injuries or death," a coach for the stunt tells the camera.

Nina Raemont Writer
A recent graduate of the University of Minnesota, Nina started at CNET writing breaking news stories before shifting to covering Security Security and other government benefit programs. In her spare time, she's in her kitchen, trying a new baking recipe.
Nina Raemont
Tom Cruise rides motor cycle off of cliff

The stunt is one of the more dangerous tricks the Mission: Impossible team has conducted. 

Screenshot by Nina Raemont/CNET

Next year's seventh installment of the Mission: Impossible series brings some stealthy stunts to the big screen. A new behind-the-scenes look for Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning Part One shows Tom Cruise riding a motorcycle off a cliff and immediately diving into a BASE jump. "This is far and away the most dangerous thing we've ever attempted," Cruise says in the video released Monday. 

The stunt is years in the making. Cruise practiced over 500 skydives and 13,000 motor cross jumps to finesse the trick for the seventh installment of the spy thriller. The team conducted the stunt in Norway in 2020.

The actor coordinated a "master plan" with experts in the various disciplines involved, like motorcycling and BASE jumping, according to the movie's writer and director, Christopher McQuarrie. 

"The only things you have to avoid in a stunt like this is serious injuries or death," Miles Daisher, Mission: Impossible's BASE jumping coach, tells the camera. 

Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning Part One is set to premiere in theaters on July 14, 2023, and stars Cruise as special agent Ethan Hunt, Ving Rhames as Agent Luther Stickell and Simon Pegg as technician Benji Dunn. 

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