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‘Bono: Stories Of Surrender': On Irish Fathers & Sons, Processing Family Tragedy & How A Need To Be Heard Propelled A Dublin Kid To Become One Of The World's Biggest Rock Stars

‘Bono: Stories Of Surrender': On Irish Fathers & Sons, Processing Family Tragedy & How A Need To Be Heard Propelled A Dublin Kid To Become One Of The World's Biggest Rock Stars

Yahoo15-05-2025
Bono laid bare his transformation from Dublin lad Paul Hewson into a global rock star and human rights crusader in his memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. Now, premiering at Cannes, comes the Andrew Dominik-directed documentary Bono: Stories of Surrender. Culled from the U2 frontman's 2023 one-man show at New York's Beacon Theater, Bono weaves performances of his best-known hit songs into a tale of a youngster suffering the shocking loss of his mother and trying in vain to get the needed acknowledgment from a grieving father who withdrew and never mentioned his dead wife in their Dublin home. The need to fill the void and to be seen and heard led to a miracle. In the span of a week, the 16-year-old Bono found the family that would sustain him. In short order, he fell in love with future wife Ali, and found his bandmates Dave Evans (The Edge), Larry Mullen Jr and Adam Clayton.
The band they formed, U2, would go on to become one of the biggest in history, selling 170 million albums worldwide and winning a record-breaking 22 Grammys.
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Bono's lifelong activism began early too. In 1983, U2 released the album War, and the polemically charged song 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' about the futility of violence with occupying British forces in Ireland. Then, in 1985, they answered pal Bob Geldof's call to perform at Live Aid, which raised hundreds of millions to feed starving refugees in Ethiopia. Told that the $250 million raised was comparable to the interest payments starving third world countries were paying to superpower debtor nations, Bono and friends pushed those nations to wipe the debts. The same passion toward wiping out HIV in Africa prompted governments around the world to provide billions of dollars toward the cause.
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Bono: Stories of Surrender begins with the singer recalling when a congenital heart condition very nearly killed him in 2016, then expands into an intimate and moving tale of father-son dynamics. Bono came to terms with his chilly relationship with his father through the performances at the Beacon, and the documentary's climax reveals a great gift Bono received from the prickly fellow he still calls The Da.
The film is the latest move in a long and innovative alliance between Bono and Apple, first with Steve Jobs and later his CEO successor Tim Cook. It began with Bono convincing Jobs to issue an iPod pre-loaded with U2's music. The relationship took a controversial turn — with an apology from Bono — when the singer crashed the catalogs of Apple Music iTunes customers with free copies of the U2 album Songs of Innocence, whether they wanted it or not. And now, the relationship continues as the documentary not only will screen on Apple TV+ after Cannes in 2D but a spectacularly immersive version will be available for owners of the Apple Vision Pro. Viewing the film through that device reveals a uniquely close and personal experience, complete with Bono's own drawings that sprout up in the wide frame. Apple pulled out all the stops here, and the technology places the viewer right up there onstage alongside Bono, close enough to see the faint scar in his chest where the heart surgeon saved his life.
Here, Bono discusses why he felt this was the right vehicle for telling his story and why, after U2 christened The Sphere in Las Vegas with sensory overload-level performances, it was important to him to help push the envelope on a more intimate technology that the Vision Pro promises. Mostly, though, this is a discussion about Irish families, and fathers and their sons.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Apart from the reward that they offer us in terms of good weather if you're Irish, what I love about the French is their love of cinema. It's the highest art, in the French public's mind. The Cannes Film Festival became this phenomenon, formed because the Venice Film Festival had been taken over by Mussolini and his German mate with the funny Charlie Chaplin mustache. They were getting to choose who won the big prize in Venice. So the French said in 1939, 'We're going to replace the film festival in Italy, which has been taken over by the fascists, and we are going to have a free film festival.' They didn't get to do it until after the war, but this was an amazing idea of freedom of expression.
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It's always a wonder to see this Oscars on the sea, the Palme d'Or. I remember Penelope Cruz winning the best actress. There was a whole bunch of people around in a busy restaurant. She walked in and as I was trying to get out of the table, she just stood up on the chair and stood up on the table and walked down it, sat down and said, 'So what are you drinking?' And the whole of France is at her feet. … I'm very excited about Europe, at the moment. In America, you're going through some difficult times.
DEADLINE:
BONO: You're fighting with yourself, about the identity of America, and Europe feels somewhat abandoned. We have a land war on European territory, and it could spread. People are preparing for the thought that America might not be with us if this land war spreads, and Putin follows in the role of the Soviet Union and puts tanks in Czechoslovakia and just takes over. So this is a feeling for me, for Europe, that this is a time when Europe is going to draw together. At this festival, you're going to feel that. … I'm really proud this tiny little film about my little family and the early days of U2 is getting its outing in Europe. I want it to be embraced by America, and I think it will. I've had other incredibly encouraging words from friends and people like Sean Penn who were there giving advice. There's something poetic about it being in Cannes.
DEADLINE:
BONO: I will say, even I've gotten sick of the protagonist. It's that old line you fear most: 'Here's another great thing about me!' And no matter what you do, what you say about your flaws, your fault lines and all the blood and guts of the story, it can still come across as, 'Here's another great thing about me.'
DEADLINE:
BONO: I had to dig quite deep and just go for a family story. All families are little operas, some bigger than others. There's always the soap opera, and there's suds here. There are tenors; there's the figure of my father, which kind of dominates. And the band. People wouldn't be turning up to hear my story if it wasn't for them. Overall, as excruciating as it's been — and I'm glad it's over — this is a great close to it.
To come from The Sphere to the intimacy of the Beacon is quite a shift. And this Vision Pro brings it back to an immersive experience. But intimacy is at the heart, I would say, of all of those projects. I tell my friends, 'Intimacy is the new punk rock.' If I'm going to do one of these memoirs, I'd better really go there. It shouldn't be the same approach others have taken. We performed in The Sphere, and that is what got me to Vision Pro. The core of this is, 'Can we make this radical intimacy?' Does that sound pretentious? Probably.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Well, there we go. Insecurity is your best security. I make this joke about Italians and Irish, and actually Jimmy Iovine told me it was true. He said, 'I was [my father's] son. I couldn't put a foot wrong. Every idea I ever had was the greatest idea ever.' His father just loved him and convinced him everything's possible; in an Italian [household], these are clichés. In my home, and it sounds like yours too, that's not how it worked. I was competitive with my father. That must've been annoying for everyone around us, especially him. And that's the reason for my singing, at the end of the film, becoming him, me becoming the tenor. 'You're a baritone who thinks he's a tenor,' my dad would say. And he was exactly right, it was an accurate description. So, becoming him at the end of the film, it was a big moment of release for me, my way of saying, 'Thank you for the voice that you gave me.' When he passed, something freed up in me, for sure. And something changed in my voice. But the thing was that playing him night after night, just the turn of his head [depicting conversations with him in the one-man show] … I always loved my father, but I started to really like him. And I started to realize his put-downs were much funnier than I, the rebellious teenager, had credited him for. … Being him, I just started to really like him, and he started making me laugh. I wish I'd gotten the jokes when I was younger. Tell me about your father for a second.
DEADLINE: The Passion of the Christ Fruitvale Station
BONO: I've been writing about grief for a while. And we have a song on Songs of Innocence called 'California,' and it goes something like, 'There's no end to grief. That's how we know there's no end to love.' You know you will never get over it, by the way. I'm here to deliver you the good and the bad of that. What was an icy, chilling feeling eventually over time gets replaced by this warm ache that you would miss, were it not there. Now, when I think of my father, I have a really beautiful warm feeling, and the same with my mother. But the laughter is also important to find, because I bet you and your father had some funny. … He comes from that [Irish] point of view. There's some funny sh*t.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Laughing about it is really important. And being there, as you say, for your own kids but not turning to stone. We start out that way, and then we have to dissolve and allow them to see the strength that comes from owning up to your vulnerabilities. That's what my father never got to. And now I can use words like stoicism, I can use words like heroic, and now I can feel guilty for being such a pain in the ass. But I think it would've been OK for him to say: 'I'm terrified. I don't know what to do. I've got two kids. I have no mother for you. I can't replace her.' There are other complications, but I'm free and just so grateful for my origin story, and I hope it's of any use to anybody.
DEADLINE:
BONO: That was [dad's] way of dealing with it. I've no resentment, but I don't think it's a good strategy. Because when you talk about somebody when they're gone, they stay alive. Otherwise, you actually lose memories. There were a few reasons for writing the book, but one was largely to explain myself to myself, but also to my family, and [create] a record of what was going on whilst they were alive.
We try to get things out in the open in our house. We actually have a feisty table, but it's also a lot of fun, a lot of laughs. But about the disappearing of Iris: I almost wrote the book to retrieve memories of her. We lost — my brother Norman and I — so much, just removing her name from the conversation. You've got to talk about these people. I mean, I think you can overdo it, too, but no, [silence] was not the right strategy. But I do not hold that against my father, Bob, the Da.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Well, look, it's psychology 101, but yes, I ran away with the circus. There wasn't a family anymore. And what a circus it turned out to be. I married what I thought was the tightrope walker, the girl on the pony. She turned out to be the ringmaster. That's Ali. I was probably the tightrope walker.
DEADLINE: Darkness on the Edge of Town
BONO: I mean, Bruce gets married every night to his audience, so in that sense he is the greatest wedding singer ever, and they're the greatest wedding band. U2 are definitely weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs. Yeah, the wailing, this thing of singing. … We've a song called 'The Showman.' The opening lyric is, 'Baby's crying 'cause it's born to sing/Singers cry about everything/Still in the playground falling off a swing.' When I started out with U2, I wouldn't have called it singing exactly, either. I would've called it shouting, but it is a kind of wail, and part of it is that primal thing that we've been talking about, but part of it is just not being ignored. But there's something about singing. I was learning about singing from my father. This is not scientific, but he, I feel, bequeaths me in his passing an extra tone to my voice, and as I let go of all that resentment and rage, I changed. I just loosened up, and the voice loosened up. Singing is not just for entertainment. The blues, that's another thing that came out of wailing, you know? The Irish word for grief, it's called keening. You'll hear it in Africa. It's bloodcurdling, [occurring during] the loss of life. In Ireland, in our history, we've all seen it in the present day in exceptional situations, but it was part of the ritual. There's something about, you sing yourself out of your situation. You breathe.
DEADLINE:
BONO: The opening of the film is about breathing, right, and the fear I felt when I was on the operating table, I was having heart surgery, and I hallucinated. It was this guy from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but it turned out to be a very nice man called David Adams, a surgeon with a Texas accent, who saved my life. I think that I had no fear of the surgery or anything like that, but I remember the loss of air and feeling like my lungs were flooding or filling up. I'm a singer, so those lungs are really necessary, and that was the closest thing I came to losing my faith, as you were talking about earlier. It was the closest thing I'd had to panic, since I was a child. It wasn't about the heart surgery. I thought I was suffocating.
DEADLINE:
BONO: I think that's right at the root of this story, for sure. But we end the film at the Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest opera house in the world. It sounds like the most mad idea, 'By the way, it's all set in the Beacon, but for one scene we just need to get to Naples, because this would blow my father's mind. I'm going to become him, and I'll be the opera singer that he had inside of him, but we have to do it here. The pub we met at all the time is called the Sorrento Lounge in Finnegan's, and we need to finish in the bay of Sorrento. It's all going to make sense.' Andrew Dominik, of course, gets it totally, but the people at Apple … you would expect a very serious, puzzled look on their faces. They said: 'Yes. If this is that important to you, then we're doing this. We're in with you all the way.' It's preposterous, but finishing in Italy in one of the most sacred places of music, and the most beautiful thing happens.
DEADLINE:
BONO: That happened in Texas where U2 was playing in the '90s and I'd set up the spotlight to shine on him. This is his first time in the United States, in Texas, which is a whole other thing, more American than the Americans themselves. He comes and it's like the sound of 10 747s, the roar of the crowd in Texas. And in the bright point in the show, I go: 'Listen, I've got a person here today that means a lot to me. It's his first time in America and it's his first time in the state of Texas, and it is my father. And he's right over there.' And everyone turns around, they see the spotlight and my da. He shakes his fist. But afterwards he comes back[stage], and I can see he's a bit shaken. He shakes my hand and he says, 'You're very professional.' Probably the only compliment a former punk rock singer wants to hear, or the only compliment you don't want to hear, rather. But of course it's a whole other language, and it was beautiful. And the more we talk about this, I can see it touches you as it touches me for our personal reasons. The book was a love story to my missus in a way. But the film is a love story, to my mother, but it's different because I never fell out with my mother. She was taken away from me before I got to know her, or she me, but I fell in love with my father. Is that Italian or Irish enough for you?
DEADLINE:
BONO: I could never be an actor. The reason I wanted to work with Andrew Dominik was not just that he was a great painter of scenes and of story, but he was a great director of actors, and non-actors. His first film Chopper, that was Eric Bana, a comedian who had been on TV a bit. He takes that role and becomes the Eric Bana that we now know of. That film Chopper is the most like Andrew Dominik, meaning it's as serious and funny as he is, and the humor of it is bewitching. Andrew drove me mad, though some people say I was there already. Asking me to say goodbye to my father, five times in one day we did that scene … and I was like, 'I couldn't do this.' I was in bits. 'I do this five times?' And he goes, 'Yeah, the lens is a lie detector, Bono.' And I'm saying, 'Andrew, didn't Marlon Brando say he lied for a living?' 'Not on this set.' He knows what you think, in the lens, and you'd better be all there. That's why I couldn't be an actor, though for certain scenes it is great fun.
My daughter Eve [Hewson] is an unbelievable actor, but in a funny way, when you're in U2, you've got all the bells and whistles, the big productions and fireworks going off in your head and in your heart when you're singing.
DEADLINE:
BONO: It's the operating theater, the table, but it's also the dining table in our house on Cedarwood Road in Dublin. Also, the chairs are the members of the band, and one of them's Ali. These are props. We've been on tour with 250 trucks, and now I'm down to four chairs. You could fit all the props in a station wagon.
When my father offers his last words to me, which indeed were an expletive … I don't think he was telling me to f*ck off. I'm not ruling it out, but [I think it was directed at] the monkey on his back. But it's that table. The table. Just no matter where you are, a nice little cottage or Cedarwood Road, there's something about that kitchen table. That's where it all comes out. The funny, funny sh*t, or those arguments. I mean, talking about faith, Christmas morning in our place, that's when it really went off and we'd be at each other's throats. So much for Prince of Peace, right? Even Santa Claus would've got a thump. Always politics and religion, the two things you're not supposed to talk about. That's all we were interested in talking about. And Irish people. There was one other thing we were really interested in talking about, except we don't, and that is sex.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Following her career is a kind of an adventure in itself because you just never know where she's going to go next. Single mother, comedian, femme fatale. She can be big, and then small. Even her family, honestly, we have no clue where she's going next. When she takes [on a role], boom! — she's gone in there. Our son [Elijah] who's out in public, he's a guitar player and singer [in the band Inhaler] and an inhaler of life. He's got the internal mental discipline to be a good songwriter. I'm certainly proud when I see [Eve on screen]. She does this thing where she puts the evolution of her character all over her apartment, the bathroom wall, to find the face she's thinking about. Maybe this is normal, I don't know. And I saw her at her table for one of her characters and there was a picture of my mother, and I said, 'Oh, it's Iris.' She said, 'Yeah, her look and her vibe. I need some of it. So I have her there when I'm getting my makeup on every day.' Isn't that wild?
DEADLINE:
BONO: Apple have this new sonic innovation commitment to fidelity of sound. Sounds are becoming really important in movies, in people's home cinemas. The Vision Pro, it's a commitment. You're getting into a world, and there are extraordinary things I've seen through the Vision Pro. … We had this idea of, well, the camera can be onstage and walking around you. We couldn't light it as easy as we thought, but we successfully got the viewer on stage. I took out my drawings from the stage show for the filming, and they're not in the 2D Apple TV+ version of Stories of Surrender, but they are in Vision Pro. Those childlike drawings — no one would like to be able to draw as badly as me — but it's like a signature, a fingerprint.
DEADLINE:
BONO: It made it really playful. I know Apple are dying to make the Vision Pro more affordable and more democratic, but they're committed to innovation, they're committed to experimenting. They know not everyone can afford this, but they're still going for it, believing that some way down the line, it'll make financial sense for them. But the fact that they may have to wait a while is not putting them off.
DEADLINE:
BONO: I think my favorite film is Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. It just changed me, because it was this idea that angels would die to feel some of the ache and the pain of falling in love, because grief is the price we pay for love. The other one for me, growing up, was Peter Sellers and Being There, a genius meditation to me. Jim Sheridan is, to me, one of the great directors of all time. His first film was with Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot. That blew my mind. He'd come from theater. I said to him: 'How'd you do that? How did you know how to be on set with all these very technical things that were so very different than theater?' He said: 'Eh. I just walked up to the DP and when he said to me, 'How do I set this next shot up?' I said, 'You tell me. I'm here to learn.' I did the same with Daniel, the same with everybody.' He said, 'It's amazing, if you ask people what they think, they sometimes tell you.' Yeah, he's a psychological genius. His understanding of people, his understanding of great stories, deep structure in Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, he's a very big brain. He'd give you hope that you could come from one discipline into another. Sam Mendes is also incredible; he moved from theater into cinema.
Well, I thank you for taking the time out, but also for giving me a glimpse into your origin story. That made a big difference to me, I felt I could be sitting in a coffee shop or a bar, and we'd have had very close to the same conversation. But I'd like to think I'd have asked you more questions and listened more, and asked you more about your father.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Turn up the volume, I say. I promise you this, we're working on something quite extraordinary at the moment, Edge, Adam, Larry and myself, so we're not going to let you down.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Steven Spielberg just flashed into my mind. Because Eve is working with him now, and I'm fed up hearing about Steven this, Steven that, and that Steven Spielberg is now the adult in the room in our house. And I would have to say the morality of his films was and is a North Star, not just for Eve, but for our family. As I say, I'm annoyed, I'm a little hurt that I come second as a sort of male figure or authority figure. Not that I was ever an authority figure for Eve, but the only person she'd probably listen to now, is him.
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  • Yahoo

Fifth Season's Noah Greenshner on ‘Severance,' Emmy Glory and the Studio's Creator-First Approach

In case you hadn't noticed, Fifth Season has officially arrived. When 'Severance' earned a staggering 27 Emmy nominations this year, Noah Greenshner, executive vice president of development and production at Fifth Season, found himself scrolling through the Television Academy's website in disbelief. More from Variety Tramell Tillman on His Emotional Coming Out Story, 'Severance' Delays and Acting With Tom Cruise the Day After He Got 'Mission: Impossible' Script Netflix, Prime Video and Beyoncé Lead Wins in 77th Emmy Juried Categories A Salute to Legends Like Kathy Bates, Jean Smart and Harrison Ford on Finally Getting Their Emmy Flowers 'After they went through the main categories, I went on the Academy website, and I scrolled to the bottom, and 'Severance' was sitting at the top with 27,' Greenshner recalled. 'I kind of just stared for a couple of seconds, and then I started to text everybody I knew on the show and just said '27' with a bunch of exclamation points. People thought I had gotten the number wrong.' The psychological workplace drama, which returned for its second season in January after a three-year hiatus, has become something of a signature project for Fifth Season — a testament to the production company's creator-friendly approach in an industry often criticized for prioritizing profits over artistry. For Greenshner, 'Severance' represents everything Fifth Season stands for. 'It's the perfect show to be the signature show because, from a philosophical standpoint, we're meant to be creator-friendly,' he says. 'We're meant to treat people as partners and not like roadblocks, which is how, historically, some of the industry has been.' The show's success has provided Fifth Season with a definitive calling card. 'It's the reference point now for everything — you can point to it and say, 'These shows can get made.' And we're the studio that wants to help people make these kinds of shows,' Greenshner says. That philosophy extends well beyond 'Severance.' The company's slate includes the recently-released epic 'Chief of War' on Apple TV+ and an adaptation of John Steinbeck's 'East of Eden,' written by Zoe Kazan, the granddaughter of Elia Kazan, who wrote and directed the original 1955 movie adaptation starring James Dean. This time around 'East of Eden' will star Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott and Mike Faist. The road to 'Severance's' Emmy triumph wasn't without obstacles. The first season faced pandemic delays, while the second season was stalled by the dual Hollywood strikes of 2023. Despite those challenges, Greenshner remained confident in the show's staying power. 'We definitely were worried about how long things were taking based on the strikes and when the show was going to be able to air,' he said. 'I remembered the same feeling when we watched the pilot — you're like, 'This really is something special.' You have confidence that the audience is going to come back.' That confidence proved well-founded. The time between seasons, rather than hurting the show, actually built momentum as new audiences discovered — and others rediscovered — the series. Greenshner has particular praise for one of the show's biggest standouts, Tramell Tillman, whose portrayal of the enigmatic Seth Milchick has become one of the most talked-about characters this Emmy season. 'He's one of the unique characters where there's still a lot of cards that are being held back for specific reasons, and so the growth has been organic with him on that journey,' Greenshner notes, highlighting how Tillman has masterfully balanced the character's menacing authority with subtle humor. As for the show's ultimate destination, the circle of those who know how 'Severance' ends remains deliberately small. When asked if he's among the select few privy to the series' conclusion, which Tillman noted in his Variety cover story is about three or four, Greenshner confirms: 'I would say the circle is a little bit bigger than that, but not that much bigger. And yes, there have been conversations between us, Apple and Ben, regarding the ending.' Greenshner remains tight-lipped about Season 3 details but confirmed all parties are eager to continue the story. 'All I can officially say — and I have to be a little coy on this one — is that from top to bottom, Apple, Fifth Season, Ben [Stiller], Dan [Erickson] and everybody involved want it back on the air as soon as possible,' he said. 'We are targeting to get it back into production as soon as we can.' As for what drives him personally about the series, Greenshner points to his romantic sensibilities. 'I'm a very big romantic at heart,' he said. 'I love, love stories. I love twisted love stories, and I'm hopeful there's a lot that comes out from there because, again, there are innies and there are outies, and there's a lot that can be.' At its core, he added, 'Severance' remains 'an idea about a man having to grieve over the loss of his wife,' exploring what happens when that fundamental human experience is complicated by the show's unique premise. There's perhaps no better symbol of Fifth Season's commitment to creativity than their Los Angeles headquarters: the Lumen Building, which is also home to Variety in Los Angeles. The name bears an uncanny resemblance to — a coincidence that isn't lost on visitors or employees. 'People like writers who walk our halls are like, 'We're in Lumen building, and your offices kind of look like 'Severance,'' Greenshner laughs. 'I just say, I know.' After seven and a half years at Fifth Season, Greenshner sees the company's mission as more relevant than ever. 'I just think we're still one of the rare places that are trying to protect talent and those kinds of bold ideas,' he says. Fifth Season was founded in 2017 as Endeavor Content. It was acquired by South Korean entertainment conglomerate CJ ENM for about $700 million in 2022. With 'Severance' leading the charge, Fifth Season is firmly out of its growing pains stage. Greenshner emphasizes the that goal is to continue championing distinctive series that cut through in today's crowded television landscape. The 77th Emmy Awards, hosted by comedian Nate Bargatze, will broadcast live on Sunday, Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS. The ceremony will also stream live and on-demand through Paramount+. Awards Circuit Predictions: Emmys Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week What's Coming to Disney+ in August 2025 What's Coming to Netflix in August 2025 Solve the daily Crossword

'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning' comes to digital this week. Where to watch.
'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning' comes to digital this week. Where to watch.

USA Today

timea day ago

  • USA Today

'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning' comes to digital this week. Where to watch.

"Mission: Impossible" fans who missed the thrill of the latest franchise installment on the big screen can rejoice this week as they watch it from the comfort of home. The digital release of "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning" offers behind-the-scenes interviews, exclusive commentary and deleted footage not seen in theaters. That includes deep dives into all of Tom Cruise's airplane and ocean stunts, as well as optional commentary by Director Christopher McQuarrie. The new film, which came out in theaters in May, stars Cruise as daredevil field agent Ethan Hunt who must stop a rogue artificial intelligence from causing global nuclear annihilation. The film marks the eighth movie installment from the action franchise based on the TV show from the 1960s and '70s. Theater-goers know the film offered satisfying closure to Hunt's story arc that began in 1996's original "Mission: Impossible" while also raising the stakes once again. "This franchise just pushes you to do things you never thought you were going to do," McQuarrie previously told USA TODAY. 'Mission: Impossible' review: Tom Cruise's 'Final Reckoning' is a death-defying joy Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox. When will 'Mission: Impossible − The Final Reckoning' release digitally? "Mission: Impossible − The Final Reckoning" will be available to buy on digital platforms, such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and Fandango at Home, on Tuesday, Aug. 19, according to Paramount Pictures. Watch 'Mission: Impossible − The Final Reckoning' on Amazon Prime | Apple TV Those who purchase the film on digital "can take a deep dive into the breathtaking production with behind-the-scenes interviews, exclusive commentary and deleted footage not seen in theaters," the studio said in its press release. Bonus content includes a behind-the-scenes look at the airplane and ocean stunts, deleted footage montage with optional commentary by Director Christopher McQuarrie, the challenges of filming the technical and extremely dangerous stunts, and an in-depth discussion with McQuarrie and Cruise. When did 'Mission: Impossible' come out? "Mission: Impossible − The Final Reckoning" was released in theaters nationwide on May 23. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. 'Mission: Impossible − The Final Reckoning' 4K Blu-ray/DVD release "Mission: Impossible − The Final Reckoning" will be available on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on Oct. 14, per Paramount Pictures. 'Mission: Impossible' movies in order: Here's where 'Final Reckoning' fits 'Mission: Impossible − The Final Reckoning' cast The cast of "Mission: Impossible − The Final Reckoning," according to Paramount Pictures, includes: Watch 'Mission: Impossible − The Final Reckoning' trailer Where to watch 'Mission: Impossible' movies For those looking to catch up, the first seven films in the franchise are streaming on Paramount+, as is the old series. "Mission: Impossible" Stream on Paramount+ Anthony Robledo covers national trending news for USA TODAY. He can be reached at arobledo@ and followed on X and Instagram @anthonyarobledo. Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@ and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.

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