Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Team Built an Entire Train Just to Destroy It

The team behind Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One chose to accept the ultimate mission: film a wild stunt sequence using a real train built from scratch.

A new behind-the-scenes featurette for Dead Reckoning (above) offers insight into the making of the movie’s epic train fight sequence, with director Christopher McQuarrie and lead star Tom Cruise explaining how they took practical filmmaking to a new level by building a fully-functioning train, only to destroy it an epic stunt.

“There was not a surplus of trains available to be wrecked,” McQuarrie admitted. “We had to build the train if we wanted to destroy it. To shoot it practically was extremely challenging, not just to execute but also to design all the different train cars that could actually function on a working railroad track. No one else in the world is doing this level of practical filmmaking, and it may never be done again.”

The team prioritised practical effects while filming the seventh Mission: Impossible movie, which meant that Cruise and his co-star Esai Morales ended up fighting on the roof of a real-life moving train that was travelling at 60mph through a mountainous valley before it ran off the rails and crashed into a quarry.

“Crashing the train involved multiplying factors of difficulty. Every single camera had exactly one shot at getting it right. Everything you are seeing in this spectacular train sequence is done to invest the audience in these characters,” McQuarrie explained before Cruise added: “It’s not just a matter of it going off because if we do it all and we don’t capture it right, then what’s the point.”

Dead Reckoning features some of Cruise’s craziest and most dangerous stunts yet, including a thrilling moment in which he rides a motorcycle off a cliff before parachuting to safety. That particular action sequence was so touch-and-go that Cruise wanted to film it on the production’s very first day, just in case it killed him.

While Cruise’s motorcycle jump is said to be the most dangerous stunt in Dead Reckoning – Part One, there is one coming in Part Two that might just be the most “terrifying” yet. McQuarrie told IGN at Dead Reckoning’s press junket in Rome that they have continued to raise the stakes in the second movie of the two-parter.

“It’s coming,” McQuarrie said. “You haven’t seen it yet. I mean, everything we do… In terms of this movie, definitely the motorcycle jump. But we have continued and we’ve pushed ourselves even further in Part Two, and you’ll see. It’s terrifying.”

There is a lot of hype building for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, as the two-part movie will reportedly serve as a send-off for Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. Part One will hit theaters on July 12, 2023, with Part Two expected to follow less than a year later, on June 28, 2024.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.