Tom Cruise, the most exciting and successful star in the world, returns to one of his signature roles, Secret Agent Ethan Hunt, in “Mission: Impossible III.” In this pulse-racing, mind-bending action thriller, Hunt confronts the toughest villain he’s ever faced – Owen Davian (Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman), an international weapons and information provider with no remorse and no conscience.
The film is co-written and directed by J.J. Abrams, who brings his unique blend of action, character, comedy, and drama to the franchise. The millions of loyal viewers of Abrams’s landmark creations, the television series “Lost” and “Alias,” know what to expect: an enthralling, intricate story with an unexpected and arresting payoff that satisfies on every level.
With “M:i:III,” Abrams and Cruise turn the spy thriller on its ear as they hark back to the best aspects of the original TV series that inspired the films – a well-connected team of agents centered around a bold and heroic leader, the most exciting action stunts imaginable, and elaborate twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat.
About the Production
Producer Paula Wagner says, “Tom Cruise and director J.J. Abrams deliver a breathtaking, action- and suspense-filled movie with humor, drama, and great characters that leaves the audience wanting more.”
Abrams responded immediately to the opportunity to bring a new vision of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise to life. “When Tom approached me about directing this movie, I said `yes’ before he asked me the question,” says Abrams. “The promise of a `Mission: Impossible’ movie is the ultimate opportunity for a writer and a director. You have the chance, especially with someone like Tom and the other actors we have in the cast, to get into some real emotional character portrayals.
“From the beginning, Tom and I talked about wanting to do a movie that had a surprisingly personal and intimate story,” continues Abrams. “When you hear `Mission: Impossible,’ you know you are going to get extreme situations, great action, and incredible stunts. The idea was to take that opportunity, and combine it with an intimate story, a love story, and friendships that were real friendships with characters that you get to know and like.”
To achieve that, the director says, he asked a few questions that probed some parts of the Ethan Hunt character that have gone unexplored. “How do you reconcile being a man who does what Ethan Hunt does?” asks Abrams. “Our approach is not to make a movie about a spy, but to tell a story about a man who is a spy. It may sound like semantics, but when you truly let that guide you, the questions come and the answers that appear are actually relatable, emotional, and fascinating.”
Producer Paula Wagner agrees. “Ethan Hunt has a life separate from his work – which creates a new conflict for him in this world of intriguing missions,” she says. “In addition to overcoming the challenges that confront the IMF, this film looks at how he has to marry his personal life with the danger of his job.
“What sets `M:i:III’ apart from the first two is that we also show more interpersonal relationships within the IMF,” Wagner continues. “Ethan Hunt and Luther Stickell have been working together now for a number of years. They have a relationship that is based on a solid friendship that is explored in this movie. Tom and Ving as actors and J.J. as a director handle that relationship all with a wonderful irony, humor, and finesse.”
The third key relationship in the film is that between Hunt and the villain, Owen Davian, played by Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman. “Whenever he plays a role, he makes the part his own; he never does what you expect, so his characters are never the same,” says Cruise. “When Ethan Hunt goes up against this guy, it’s terrifying – because Philip could go anywhere with Davian, Davian’s capable of anything. Ethan’s never faced a villain as ruthless and fearsome as Philip’s.”
“Mission: Impossible III” also delivers all of the incredible action and breathtaking stunts that moviegoers expect from the franchise. The writing team – Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Abrams – dreamed up new sequences for Hunt to survive… which, says Abrams, put the director in a delicate situation. “When we started writing the action sequences, we would say, `We shouldn’t even write this because Tom’s going to want to do the stunt himself.’ In the end, we realized, of course, we had to give the best we could. Though it’s a bit hair-raising, it’s inspiring to work with an actor and producer who’s so willing to give everything to make the best movie he can.”
About Ethan Hunt
In writing “M:i:III,” J.J. Abrams and his co-writers, Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci, went back to the drawing board with the character of Ethan Hunt. “From the very beginning, Tom, Alex, Bob, and I wanted to do a movie about a character,” says Abrams. “Not that there isn’t a lot of action – that goes without saying – but my favorite kind of spy movie is one where the commitment to the world, as extreme as it is, and as hyper-real as it is, is still emotionally true. You have these characters going through some of the most heartbreaking, most terrifying, most horrifying, most thrilling, most fun moments, and you believe all of them within the context of the genre. That’s what we wanted to bring to `M:i:III.’”
“I think a big challenge many people face in their daily lives is how to balance home and work,” says Cruise. “How do you work at a job you love while also spending time with your spouse and kids? What we’ve done is to raise that to the extreme: not only does Ethan have to balance these two worlds, but because he’s a spy, his home world is directly affected by his work. We’ve started with a real issue and taken it to an incredibly entertaining and extreme level.”
In exploring that, the filmmakers created a new life for Ethan Hunt. When the film begins, Hunt has retired from active duty – he now trains new IMF agents. With this change, he opens himself up to other new possibilities in his life, including marriage.
“In this movie, you get to see Ethan in some dramatic and emotional moments,” says Michelle Monaghan, who plays Julia, the love of Ethan’s life. “He’s truly in love and he wants it to last. Julia is truly in love with him, but she doesn’t know what he does; over the course of the film, she starts to see him become really distressed and she starts to wonder if there’s something that he’s hiding. He asks her to trust him – and she does.”
Of course, Ethan cannot tell his new bride the whole truth.“She thinks he studies traffic for a living,” she says. Monaghan takes on the role of leading lady, her largest role to date, after memorable supporting roles in “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” and the television program “Boston Public.” She says that her character helps the audience to see Ethan Hunt – the man they’ve known only as a spy – in a different light. “You get to see his vulnerable side,” she says. “You see all the action and intrigue you expect, but you’re invested in the character in a completely different way than in the past.”
Abrams says that his high-stakes story is the perfect match for Cruise’s on- and off-screen intensity. “Before we started shooting, Cameron Crowe mentioned to me that Tom was so focused, professional, and hard working, he was going to spoil me for the rest of my life,” says Abrams. “Everything he said is absolutely true.”
About the Villain
Abrams notes that the writing team took special care to create a villain worthy of Ethan Hunt – one that could match up to the hero. “This is the first time that Hunt has come up against an adversary that is as scary, clever, mysterious as the character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman,” says Abrams.
Hoffman, who recently won an Academy Award® for his performance in “Capote,” takes on the role of Owen Davian, Ethan Hunt’s most ruthless opponent yet. An international information and weapons trader without remorse or conscience, Hoffman describes it this way: “In this type of transaction, there’s a good cop and a bad cop. Davian’s the bad cop – he takes care of the dirty work.”
For Hoffman, Davian is a role he can sink his teeth into. “He’s not just a villain – he’s a psychopath,” says Hoffman. “He creates incredible empathy for Ethan; the darker, more evil, more vicious this man is toward the hero, the more you want the hero to take this man down.”
“M:i:III” presented new challenges to Hoffman. “I’ve never done an action film before,” he says, “and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve known J.J. casually for many years, and I worked with Tom before, on `Magnolia.’ When I read the script, I was impressed with the three ingredients – Tom, J.J., and the screenplay – combined. I thought that the time was right to do this kind of project, with these people and with this script.”
According to Hoffman, Davian plays a pivotal role in the central tension of “M:i:III.” “Ethan and Julia – Tom’s and Michelle Monaghan’s characters – are two people who have a lot of fear as they get married,” says Hoffman.“It comes from the terror about what could happen. Am I going to lose this person? Am I going to lose myself if we unite? On an extreme level, they’re going through all the same things that keep people in everyday life from getting married. My character embodies that: the nightmare aspect that keeps people from making that kind of commitment.
About the Team
Joining Ethan Hunt as members of his IMF team are Luther Strickell (Ving Rhames) – the only person to join in on all three missions – as well as Declan (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), Zhen (Maggie Q), and Lindsey (Keri Russell). Laurence Fishburne plays Brassel, the director of the Impossible Mission Force, and Billy Crudup is Musgrave, Brassel’s right-hand man.
Ving Rhames reprises his role as computer expert Luther Strickell. In this film, says Rhames, it’s rewarding to see Luther’s relationship with Ethan explored in more depth than ever before. “In the first two movies, they never talked about their private lives,” says Rhames. “These two guys are co-workers and friends; this time, they talk about the things that friends talk about. That’s what J.J. has done – he’s made these people humans apart from what they do for a living.”
Rhames notes that Abrams’s directing style is, in some ways, like that of another director he’s worked with. “He reminds me of Quentin Tarantino and the youthful energy he brings to the set,” says the actor. “I think that’s contagious with actors.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers joins the team as Declan, the team’s transportation expert: if you need it flown, driven, sailed, glided, helicoptered, or motored, he’s the man you want – despite his personality quirks. “Declan’s a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, mad Irishman,” says Rhys Meyers, who was most recently seen in the lead role of Woody Allen’s “Match Point,” a performance for which he received rave reviews. “He’s part of the next generation of the IMF – Ethan’s grooming him. He’s got that risk element that Ethan likes in his team members.”
Declan is also a chameleon, able to blend into any situation unnoticed. “One minute, he’s an Italian deliveryman; the next, he’s a geeky American tourist; and the next, a Vatican guard,” notes Rhys Meyers. “It’s very easy for him to slip into another character.”
Maggie Q comes to “Mission: Impossible III” as one of Asia’s most popular actors after starring in such motion pictures as Hong Kong’s box-office smash “Gen-Y Cops” and “Naked Weapon.”
Born in Hawaii, Maggie was busy working in Hong Kong when the “M:i:III” call came. “I’ve been living in Hong Kong for eight years and wasn’t planning to do an American film,” she says. “Now, my first American starring role is in a huge Tom Cruise movie. The scale of everything is so much bigger than in Hong Kong. Coming back to America has been a real culture shock.
“Zhen is a very tough, hard woman – a doer, not a talker,” Maggie says of her character. “She works behind-the-scenes; Ethan is the front man of the operation and Zhen is part of the team that helps make work.”
To prepare for her role, Maggie underwent a rigorous training regime. In addition to cardio and toning, she underwent some strength training to gain muscle. She also went through martial arts training and boxed. “In movie fighting, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades,” she says. “You can’t specialize – you’re often called upon to chameleon into different kinds of fighting.”
After witnessing Jackie Chan and other Asian martial-arts stars willing to put their bodies on the line for their films, Maggie Q was impressed with Cruise’s willingness to perform his own stunts. “I’ve worked with Jackie Chan, and watching Jackie, you know he grew up in a Kung Fu school, he was in the circus – he had a tough upbringing and he’s a tough guy. There’s no doubt he can handle it. When I see Tom do the same things, that, I think, is amazing. Tom earns a lot of respect from the action director and the stunt people who know just how difficult everything is. Tom has an undying energy – when he’s acting, of course, but really, all the time.”
Keri Russell, who previously starred for Abrams on his first television series, “Felicity,” takes on the role of Lindsey Ferris, the only trainee that displays the high skill level and abilities to be confirmed by Ethan to become a member of IMF.
“Keri’s the absolute greatest,” says Abrams. “I haven’t worked with her since `Felicity,’ so having this opportunity is an absolute joy. It’s inspiring: she’s never done anything like this before, so watching her pick up the gun work and the stunts really showed me that she’s capable of anything. Tom was really helpful in showing her the ropes of action and stuntwork: the timing of it, the rhythm of it, and getting the confidence to do it.”
In the movie, Russell’s character, Lindsey, spars with Ethan using stick-fighting techniques. “The training was really fun,” says Russell. “I spent about four and a half months training with the stunt guys – they’re incredible athletes. We boxed and I learned to stick-fight. It was pretty cool.”
For Laurence Fishburne, joining the cast of “Mission: Impossible III” was the realization of a childhood fantasy. “When I was a kid, it was the show we ran home to watch,” he says. “We’d play Impossible Mission Force and pretend to be secret agents, play with the gadgets, sing the cool music, all of that. Now I’m the boss, the guy above Mr. Phelps – I’m the guy who sends the envelopes. Who could pass that up?”
About the Stunts and Action Sequences
In creating `Lost’ and `Alias,’ J.J. Abrams has already invented his personal visual style: because the action derives organically from Abrams’s very human characters, he chooses a natural, realistic, and gritty approach over stylized, slow-motion, and highly edited fighting sequences.
Legendary action director Vic Armstrong was charged with realizing J.J. Abrams’s signature action style on the big screen in “Mission: Impossible III.” “All the initial discussions I had with J.J. were about the style,” stresses Armstrong. “J.J. wanted to put his own stamp on the action sequences; my job as an action director is to copy the style of the director. You need a seamless transition between the action and the rest of the film – it’s all part of the same world. Once we had established that, I started looking at the action in the movie and what had to be achieved.”
In order to work out the complicated action shots and sequences, Abrams made full use of the pre-visualization capabilities at his disposal. Pre-visualization is the director’s opportunity to describe an action sequence, as he envisions it, to a visual effects editor, who makes a CG representation of it. In this way, each department can see exactly what the specific requirements will be as they prepare to pull it off.
Special Effects Coordinator Dan Sudick explains, “When we sit down with the director and look at a pre-viz for the bridge sequence, for example, we can see the cars driving down the bridge, flipping, rolling, or whatever J.J. wants them to do. We take that information and do it in the real world. We take the cars and rig them to do exactly what is shown in the pre-viz.”
Once the heads of each department can see what the director intends for the sequence, they can begin the intricate work of realizing the sequence on film. Sudick continues the example of the bridge sequence: “There are a lot of cars to rig. Stunt players will drive many of them; each of those cars has to be fitted with roll cages. Then we have to work out how to get the performance from the cars: the rolls, flips, and explosions. It can take weeks to shoot a sequence that will appear in the film for only a few minutes.”
Armstrong – a movie-industry veteran of more than 40 years – says that his experience working with Tom Cruise on “War of the Worlds” prepared him for the actor-producer’s well-known enthusiasm for performing his own stunts. “He’s 100% hands on, which is ideal, because of his tremendous ability,” says Armstrong. “Having worked with him before really helped, because I designed the stunts with him in mind. We’ve done some amazing things with Tom; he went above and beyond what I expected him to do.”
For Abrams, achieving the effects in-camera (as opposed to with CGI) with Cruise performing as many of his own stunts as possible was a must. “All the latest CG technology is great – but if you can do something for real – actually have the actor perform the stunt and not rely on head replacement – well, nothing trumps that.”
“For me, it’s part of the challenge of making movies,” says Cruise. “You can’t take undue risks, but if you can train and perform a stunt in a way that gives the movie credibility – `Wow, that really is that guy doing that’ – then it makes for a more entertaining experience for the audience.
One of the centerpiece stunts in the film is a sequence on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. “These are unique moves,” says Armstrong. “At one point, the bridge is blown apart; Ethan has to jump over a fifteen foot gap – he just makes it and hangs on by his finger nails. Tom had to hit the other side hard – people know what an impact looks like when you jump that sort of distance.”
Another impressive stunt on the bridge required Cruise to escape a rocket hit on one of the vehicles; he is lifted and blown across the bridge by the force of the explosion into a parked car. “He hits it so hard he blows out the back window,” says Armstrong. “We controlled the rig – on explosion, we ratcheted him into the side of the car. And he really hit it – he went in horizontally, flying through the air. The impact dented the door on the vehicle. And then, we did the stunt two or three more times. Tom really is game – if any stuntman had that shot on their resume, they would be very, very proud of it.”
Cruise, though, takes it in stride. “It’s like being a wide receiver going over the middle – you know that you are going to get stuffed by the middle line backer as hard as he can hit you. I want it to be exciting for an audience; I hope they’ll be right with that character at that moment. It had to be real.”
To prepare for the stunts in “M:i:III,” Cruise trained for many months. “When I was releasing `War of the Worlds,’ I was training every day while I was traveling. I would do a warm up in the morning, then practice `dynamic movement,’” he notes. Often used by rock climbers, dynamic movement involves movement through momentum, rather than by becoming balanced. This type of movement is high-energy, requiring effort to keep momentum going, but by using an efficient use of a moving center-of-gravity, a person can reach further than by starting standing still. “My goal was to get everything going,” continues Cruise. “I needed that dynamic, explosive speed for what we all wanted to accomplish with the action and the story.”
Another dramatic stunt in “M:i:III” is a jump off an eighty-foot building. “He jumps – and free-falls for about fifty feet,” says Armstrong. “It was essential that Tom perform the stunt – not only do we see the jump and the fall, but Tom acting as the character falling. It wasn’t about just having the guts to shut his eyes and jump on a bungee jump; Tom not only had to jump, but act as well. It’s one of the most amazing things I have seen an actor do.”
“Tom drops, stopping eighteen inches above the concrete, and I found myself talking to someone else between takes,” says J.J. Abrams. “I realized I had become complacent about having Tom Cruise – who was entirely my responsibility – dangling from a crane, dropping at breakneck speed, stopping just above the ground. I remember thinking: `I have to get back to being terrified.’”
In a third spectacular jump off a building, Ethan Hunt dives from the roof of one skyscraper to another. “After Tom jumps off the skyscraper, he comes to the end of his tether and a pendulum effect starts snatching him in another direction,” says Armstrong. “Crashing down, he is hooked on a lamppost upside down; releasing himself, he finds himself on a busy street with a semi hurtling towards him.
“For this stunt, Tom lay in the street as a jackknifed rig, which is a forty foot truck with a tractor unit on the front of it, drives over him,” continues Armstrong. “If any of those cylinders failed, the truck would straighten out and flatten Tom. To test it out, I laid under it once and felt it go over my head; it was a very scary experience. For the real thing, I was standing on a hill beside one of the cameras and it seemed that the truck was driving straight at him forever before it started jackknifing around. You can imagine how I was feeling.”
“Tom Cruise raises the bar in this movie by doing his most intricate and amazing stunts to date,” says Wagner. “Not only is he a great actor, producer, and the premiere movie star in the world, but he is also a stuntman. He is very precise. When I stand there as a producer and I see Tom with a truck sliding over him, it’s a little nerve-wracking, but I know he is totally in control of what he is doing.”
For Keri Russell – who had no major stunt experience before taking on “M:i:III” – Cruise’s expertise was essential. “Jumping off a six story building isn’t exactly something I had done before,” Russell laughs. “It was very scary the first time – my heart was pounding – but having Tom with me really helped. He said, `It’s a breeze, let’s do it. Are you excited?’ And we jumped.”
About the Locations and Production Design
“Mission: Impossible III” lives up to the tradition of spy thrillers taking audiences to exotic international locations. However, Abrams is careful to note, the locations were chosen because they were specifically part of the story he tells. “I didn’t want the audience to get `travelogue syndrome,’” he says. “The places we chose are integral to the whole story.”
Enzo Sisti in Italy and Eric Schwab in China worked with production designer Scott Chambliss and the filmmakers to find locations that could be incorporated into the film organically.
“From the very start, J.J. didn’t want `Mission: Impossible III’ to look super-slick,” explains the production designer, Scott Chambliss, who previously collaborated with Abrams on the television series “Felicity” and “Alias.” “He wanted it to be grounded in reality. He wanted grit and texture and reality to the character. That meant that our locations had to have the same reality and also be at the enormous scale that befits a `Mission: Impossible.’”
To bring that to life, the filmmakers chose, in Chambliss’s words, “a huge Vatican sequence, a huge rooftop sequence in Shanghai, and huge factory sequence in Berlin. J.J.’s concept drives the scale of all the action in our story.”
In order to find the kind of unique locations they were looking for, Chambliss embarked on a worldwide scout. “I’ve visited some of the most amazing, exciting locations in the world,” he marvels. “Every country we visited offered incredible opportunities and incredible challenges as well. We looked for places with dramatic power. This isn’t a fantastical world, it isn’t a period piece; every place we go, we want to believe in it.”
Principal photography began in Rome. The first thrilling action sequence took place on the Tiber River, which runs through the middle of the city. The filming in such a public place caused great excitement, with crowds of paparazzi and onlookers crowding the banks and bridges overlooking the river.
Tom Cruise and the actors playing the other members of the I.M.F. team – Ving Rhames (Luther), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Declan) and Maggie Q (Zhen) – took part in a high speed motor boat chase on the Tiber, which featured the incredible backdrop of the Vatican itself.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers describes the scene: “We’re flying along in this speedboat, going through these archways, and all of a sudden I hear this sound in my head – the theme to `Mission: Impossible’: dun, dun, dun dun, dun, dun, dun dun… doodle doo, doodle doo… and I realize, it’s coming from Tom. Tom’s actually singing it. He’s still that same kid, sitting down with popcorn and ice cream to watch the show on a Friday evening. He still believes in the magic of it.”
From Rome, the production moved south to the Palazzo Reale Della Reggia Di Caserta, near Naples, which would double for the Vatican. Chambliss was responsible for transforming the monumental fortress into the Vatican courtyard. “The scene involves a party for 300 people in a gigantic rotunda; it had to have a texture and a punch so that it wouldn’t get lost in the enormous architecture. We very studiously went through mounds of research on Vatican ceremonies, public and private. As it turns out, they don’t have one single color palate for their ceremonies, so we fabricated dozens of enormous Papal banners.”
From there, the production moved to Shanghai, China. From the very beginning, Abrams envisioned a sequence taking place in the Far East; after scouting Japan, the filmmakers took a trip to China and found a location unlike any other in the world. The China locations were produced with the assistance of China Film Co-Production Corporation and The Fourth Production Company China Film Group Corporation.
“Shanghai is a futuristic, science-fiction city,” says Abrams. “It’s also a city that reveals a real cost to its expansion: old neighborhoods are being razed in order to build these monolith office buildings. That was fascinating – the ancient as counterpoint to the brand new and what’s next.”
“Shanghai was just astonishing,” adds Chambliss. “Even though so many people are being displaced, there’s this incredible spirit of optimism and energy. I think they consider themselves the city and country of the future.”
The production also found that a short distance from Shanghai, many fishing villages still live in much the same way that they have for centuries. With this in mind, the writers decided to showcase this part of the country.
“Our locations managers and props designer identified a handful of cities outside of Shanghai; Xitang was the most unusual in terms of its look for an American film – I hadn’t seen this before,” says Abrams.
Xitang is an ancient fishing village about a two-hour drive outside Shanghai. It is estimated to be around 1,000 years old and boasts a 700-year-old restaurant. “Xitang is the setting that bookends the film,” explains Abrams. “We wanted to use the ancient town as a backdrop for an emotional endpiece.”
One location in the United States was a homecoming of sorts for Abrams. When preparing to film Ethan Hunt’s home, Abrams asked Chambliss to style the set after Abrams’s own house. “It made things simple for me,” says Chambliss. “I just called J.J.’s wife, Katie, and asked if I could come over to take some pictures.”
According to Michelle Monaghan, the director was unprepared for how much like his own home the set would look. “J.J. kind of freaked out,” she says. “He was checking it out and was like, `This is my bathroom.’ It was pretty funny.”
About the Theme
The theme to “Mission: Impossible” is not only well known, but iconic; originally written by Lalo Schifrin, the theme sets the stage for all the action and suspense to come. To interpret the theme for “M:i:III,” the filmmakers chose an artist who makes it contemporary while keeping it as familiar and classic as ever.
Kanye West fit the bill. Hailed by TIME Magazine as “the smartest man in pop music,” West is the winner of six Grammys, a legendary music producer, and a multiplatinum-selling recording artist whose two albums, “The College Dropout” and “Late Registration,” have reinvented hip-hop. The choice of West continues the tradition of groundbreaking and innovative artists performing the classic theme, as members of U2 did in 1996 for “Mission: Impossible,” followed by Limp Bizkit in 2000 for “M:I-2.”
For Cruise, West was the only choice. “When I work on music, I think visually,” says West. “Though this is my first opportunity to make a song specifically for a movie, I’ve always tried to make my music sound cinematic.”
West jokes that working with the theme represented a unique opportunity, one he couldn’t pass up: “I knew we could get the sample cleared, for a change,” he says. “`You mean, I have permission?! I can use this?!’”
West feels that he’s a natural fit with the explosive, bass-heavy theme. “I like music that’s both dark and melodic,” he says. “Tom put it best – when you hear that theme come in, it sounds mean. It puts you in exactly the right mood for what’s going to come.”
West also recorded an original song, “Impossible,” featuring Twista and Keisha Cole. The song is featured over the end credits of the film.
About the Director
J.J. Abrams, the creator of the groundbreaking television programs “Lost” and “Alias,” takes on his greatest challenge to date as co-writer and director of “Mission: Impossible III.” After Brian de Palma and John Woo left their indelible marks on the first two films in the franchise, Cruise and Wagner sought out a new voice for the third film.
“Making a `Mission: Impossible’ is a different experience every time,” says Cruise. “We present Ethan Hunt from a different viewpoint. I love playing Ethan; each time out, we go on that `Mission’ ride from a new perspective. This is J.J. Abrams’s vision, with his voice as a filmmaker.”
“J.J. has earned his reputation as a television maestro,” says Wagner, “but I had known J.J. from his years as a feature film writer and his scripts were always written with the amazing eye of a director. When Tom and I went back and watched the work he had directed – the pilot of `Lost’ and his `Alias’ work – Tom said, `This is it. This is the guy to direct `Mission: Impossible.’”
“The instant I went into J.J.’s office, we clicked, both artistically and personally,” says Cruise. “J.J.’s work has everything I love about movies: his characters, the personal stories, the twists and turns. The first thing that I said to him was, `What would you do with this series? I want this to be a J.J. Abrams `Mission: Impossible.’”
Abrams is a talent widely admired by audiences and critics alike; hailed by The New York Times as “one of the most exhilarating storytellers in television,” he recently won two Emmys – for best directing and best dramatic series – for his work on “Lost.”
The production designer, Scott Chambliss, says that Abrams’ television experience prepared him – and the rest of the crew – for a run-and-gun style of feature filmmaking. “The last five years working with J.J. at that pace has been the perfect training to work with J.J. here. On `Alias,’ we had to think on our feet and make choices quickly. Then, on `M:i:III,’ we had so many people so well versed in this format and this scale. It was interesting to watch the integration between the TV guys and the guys who’ve been doing the big movies; we all figured out how to make a huge action movie in a very compressed time envelope.”
“I don’t think this film could have been done without J.J.,” says Philip Seymour Hoffman. “He brings an incredible sense of humor, he’s astonishingly bright and sharp, and he has a confidence about him that’s absolutely necessary to steer the ship of `Mission: Impossible III.’ He has such a sure hand that we all trust him implicitly – he kept us on the right path.”
These production notes provided by Paramount Pictures.
Mission: Impossible 3
Starring: Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Maggie Q, Laurence Fishburne, Keri Russell, Michelle Monaghan
Directed by: J.J. Abrams
Screenplay by: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, J.J. Abrams
Release Date: May 5th, 2006
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of frenetic violence & menace, disturbing images & some sensuality.
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $134,029,801 (33.7%)
Foreign: $263,820,211 (66.3%)
Total: $397,850,012 (Worldwide)