Latest news with #FinalReckoning
USA Today
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
See Tom Cruise defy death in exclusive 'Mission: Impossible' deleted scene
Tom Cruise's daredevil "Mission: Impossible" stunts are so cool, it's hard to believe that anything gets left on the cutting-room floor. But editing is important to the filmmaking process, and director Christopher McQuarrie had hard decisions to make in crafting "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning" (available to buy Aug. 19 on digital platforms). One of the biggest moments in the action adventure is a dizzying sequence involving Cruise's superspy Ethan Hunt and a harrowing biplane chase, and USA TODAY is exclusively premiering a nifty aerial scene deleted from the film. Near the end of this eighth "Mission" installment, Ethan is in airborne pursuit of villainous Gabriel (Esai Morales), and has to navigate – in death-defying manner – going from his biplane to Gabriel's mid-air. McQuarrie filmed 400 hours of footage that ended up being distilled down to a mere 15 minutes. Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox "Each one of these shots represents a great deal of difficulty, a lot of danger, a lot of coordination between multiple aircraft, a lot of skill from the pilots, and always looking for ways to show that is Tom flying the plane and not a stuntman – which is not usually the case," McQuarrie says in a voiceover introducing the nixed sequence. It's the first of a two-part stunt where Ethan tries to climb onto Gabriel's plane, our hero's foot hits the control stick, and the plane goes into a nasty roll where Ethan is hanging out of the thing precariously before getting his bearings back. McQuarrie's film editor, Eddie Hamilton, kept telling him it was "redundant," though the director "of course resisted that," McQuarrie says. But "it could go and so it went." In addition to an array of deleted scenes, the "Final Reckoning" digital release includes a bunch of bonus features that dig into Cruise's stunt work, including notching a Guinness World Record for most burning parachute jumps by an individual.
Mint
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
Mission Impossible Final Reckoning OTT release date: When is Tom Cruise's film expected to stream online?
Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning was released in theatres on May 23 worldwide. In India, however, the film was released a week ahead on May 17. Tom Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt. As the title says 'Final Reckoning', it was widely marketed to be the final instalment of the MI franchise. However, the film did not end Hunt's story. Tom Cruise has also claimed it would be his last Mission Impossible film. However, it does not mean the franchise will end. According to director Christopher McQuarrie, the Dead Reckoning Parts 1 and 2 are not the end of the series. They already have ideas for what comes next, he told Fandango. Even Tom Cruise revealed he would not like to stop as Ethan Hunt. 'Harrison Ford is a legend; I hope to be still going; I've got 20 years to catch up with him. I hope to keep making Mission: Impossible films until I'm his age,' The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Cruise as saying. Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning posters asked viewers to watch it on the big screen. But, not everyone went to the theatre despite being fans of the film franchise. The Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning OTT release date is not confirmed yet. However, we can take a clue from what happened to the previous film. Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One premiered in Rome on June 19, 2023. It was released in the US on July 12, 2023, with early fan screenings on July 10. The digital version came out on October 10, 2023. Blu-ray and DVD followed on October 31. It began streaming on Paramount+ from January 25, 2024. The OTT release in India involved multiple digital platforms. It is available on JioHotstar, Z5, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV. Following the two-month rule, the Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning OTT release is expected in the last part of July or the beginning of August.
USA Today
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Lalo Schifrin, mastermind behind 'Mission: Impossible' theme, dies at 93: Reports
Lalo Schifrin, the Grammy-winning mastermind behind the "Mission: Impossible" theme song, has died, according to reports. He was 93. Schifrin died Thursday, June 26, from complications with pneumonia, surrounded by family in his Los Angeles home, the Associated Press and Guardian report. USA TODAY has reached out to Shifrin's agent for comment. A highly venerated composer, Schifrin's musical concoctions form the emotional backbone of movies like "Cool Hand Luke," "The Fox," "Voyage of the Damned," "The Amityville Horror," "The Sting II" and the "Rush Hour" trilogy. A four-time Grammy winner, he was also nominated for six Academy Awards over the course of a near five-decadelong career, and was gifted an honorary Oscar in 2019 for his contributions to film. 'Mission: Impossible' movies in order: Here's where 'Final Reckoning' fits Born in Argentina in 1932 to a musical family, Schifrin cut his chops as a jazz pianist in Europe before settling in America and drawing on his own skill to work first as a classical composer and then as a scorer for film and television. He wrote over 100 scores throughout his career and helped orchestrate the first-ever joint performance of the Three Tenors for the 1990 FIFA World Cup championships in Italy. His most famous work, however, remains the suspenseful earworm that grounds the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. Equal parts brassy and moody, the theme has become an indelible part of American movie culture, especially as the brand has moved from a mildly popular television series to a wildly successful film juggernaut, propelling both Tom Cruise and Schifrin's catchy tune to eternal stardom. 'Mission: Impossible'? We rank every movie (even 'Final Reckoning') from worst to best "The producer called me and told me, 'You're going to have to write something exciting, almost like a logo, something that will be a signature, and it's going to start with a fuse,'" Schifrin told the Associated Press in 2006. "So I did it and there was nothing on the screen. And maybe the fact that I was so free and I had no images to catch, maybe that's why this thing has become so successful," he said. "Because I wrote something that came from inside me."
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jason Blum on Those Big Budgets for Horror Movies and Why ‘Sinners' Is the Exception to the Rule
Blumhouse founder Jason Blum has an axe to grind when he hears people say Ryan Coogler's 'Sinners' is not a horror film. Admittedly, the movie is a genre-bending period film and folk fable about the roots of blues music, but it's got vampires killing people in it, so it's a horror movie. And Blum wants you to know it. 'Sinners'' box office success — $350 million worldwide to date — has defied expectations for what an original horror film can do, and even though Blum didn't make it, it's good for his business when the genre as a whole thrives. But much of the discussion around that movie before its release was its hefty budget — a reported $90 million — that complicated its path to profitability. For Blum, he's built his empire on movies made on the cheap that can still be marketed as events, break out in a big way, and spawn franchises. But as Blumhouse has scaled up and the demand for horror has increased, Blumhouse can't make movies as modestly, and the industry too runs into challenges to continue to make horror movies work financially. More from IndieWire 'Titan: The OceanGate Disaster' Review: A Surface-Level Netflix Documentary About the Submersible Implosion Heard Around the World Tom Cruise Has Never Been Happy with His Breath-Defying Underwater Scenes, So 'Final Reckoning' Went Three Times Bigger Blum on Tuesday took the stage in Hollywood at a press event called The Business of Fear, in which he and a panel of Blumhouse and Atomic Monster associates discussed box office trends for the genre and how horror has evolved over the years, such that the genre 'horror' can't be viewed so narrowly. IndieWire asked him about 'Sinners,' a movie he says is 'one of my favorite horror movies I've seen in a long time,' and why he felt 'Sinners' was the rare exception to the rule about making horror movies work on such a massive scale. 'We are definitely not interested in doing movies with that size a budget. That said, I'm glad they had the budget that they had because I think it really helped make the movie rich and incredible and amazing; but we are not going to make horror movies at that level anytime soon, maybe ever,' Blum said in the panel discussion. 'The bigger the budget, the more strain on the creative and the more sanding down of edges. And I think, generally speaking, 'Sinners' being the exception, the product is less interesting. So we are committed to lower budgets to continue to be able to take creative risks and do interesting things, which I think is harder to do when you have more money.' Blumhouse, following its merger with James Wan's Atomic Monster, has scaled up significantly such that it needs to have 'major studio-level success,' as Blum puts it. That means $100 million+ movies, which even for Blum and Wan is rare for movies made for just $1 million. He acknowledges that an indie like last year's 'Longlegs' pulled off the feat, and films like 'Terrifier 3' came dang close, Blum said today 'it's much harder to do what we started doing 15 years ago.' 'So the way that we've addressed that is by adding a bit of money to our model; but still, by studio standards, for instance, the budgets of our movies are 60 percent off the average sticker price, actually probably more, 75 percent off, the average sticker price,' Blum said. Blumhouse has five remaining movies on its slate for 2025, all of them sequels, including 'M3GAN 2.0,' 'Five Night's at Freddy's 2,' a new 'Conjuring' movie, 'The Black Phone 2,' and 'Mortal Kombat 2.' At the event, Blumhouse also announced it's in development on 'Ma 2,' with Octavia Spencer set to return. But it's threading a needle in finding original properties that someday can be the next major franchise for Blumhouse. Together with Atomic Monster it's branching out into video games, an exciting growth area to tell other horror stories, but Blumhouse president Abhijay Prakash explained that they're positioned to adapt one of those games into a film should one break out, though that wasn't the reason it launched the division. Blumhouse also announced at the event it will be adapting another indie horror game hit, 'Phasmaphobia.' Blum is also staying true to the company's philosophy about finding good stories, things that are genuinely scary, rather than trying to stack them with stars or buzzy directors and figure out the rest later. IndieWire asked Blum about a recent viral video from Charli XCX in which she pitched the idea of a 'Final Destination' movie starring all 'It Girls,' and directed by Coralie Fargeat for good measure. Blum hadn't seen the video, but he'd want to hear a bit more. 'Generally, I am not a fan, I think no one on this panel is, of reverse-engineering movies. You never get a good result,' he said. 'It's how, unfortunately, the vast majority of movies are made, but it's very hard to get a good movie reverse-engineering it.' Blum added the studio is unlikely to again release a movie day-and-date in theaters and on Peacock as it did with 'Five Nights at Freddy's' but won't be repeating with the sequel. Horror works best in the theater, not at home, and it's the reason the genre has consistently grown in popularity and still hasn't reached its peak. He says it will lead to movies that are one day constructed very differently for theatrical than they are for streaming — not just a difference in quality or budgets — and horror is very equipped for that evolution. 'Horror, in my mind, is the only genre that you just can't get what you are going to see a horror movie for at home on TV. It doesn't work,' he said. 'The only way to be really scared is when your phone is not with you and when you are in a dark room with a lot of other people and you are fully focused on a movie. You guys try it. Watch a horror movie on streaming, and when you know a scare is coming, look away for two seconds and look back. It stops working. It's just, your suspension of disbelief is broken, and when you are leading that up to a scare, you are just not scared. It's actually made horror in cinema stronger.' Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Michael Phillips: In a world of easily manipulated images, can movies retain their magic?
I love getting faked out by the movies. I love believing the impossible, if only for a moment. Moviewise, I live for a lot of things; one of them, by which I was floored at the age 5, was Buster Keaton's 'Cops' (1922) and his startling genius as a physical and comic presence. Half the time, at that age, I wasn't sure if what I was watching was actually happening. That's how it is with beautiful illusions, created from real risks that become the audience's reward. When the right people collaborate on the right movie, it sometimes happens: a fresh combination of legitimately dangerous stunt work and crafty but not frantic editing, along with the inevitable layer of digital effects elements. What do you get? Honest fakery. The best kind. The kind that elicits a single, astonished, delighted response in the mind of the beholder: Can I believe what I just saw? Across eight 'Mission: Impossible' movies, including the one now in theaters, Tom Cruise has been doing the damnedest stunts for nearly 30 years to provoke that response. Action movies can make anybody do anything on screen. Cruise doesn't do it alone; the digital effects teams stay pretty busy on the 'M:I' franchise. Cruise is now 62, and denying it with every maniacal sprint down some faraway city's waterfront boulevard. He knows that dangling, at high speed and altitude, from various parts of an antagonist's biplane in 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' is a good, old-fashioned selling point, in an era crowded with deceptions. In 'Final Reckoning' we don't see the harnesses and cables ensuring that stunt's relative safety. Those implements have been digitally erased, a visual filmmaking practice now as common as the common cold. But there he is, the secret agent ascending and descending, with someone trying to kill him. Tom Cruise, doing something most of us wouldn't. Lately, though, the movie industry's most sought-after audience response — can you believe what we just saw? — lands differently than it did a few years ago. We mutter that question more darkly now, with troubling regularity. And it's not when we're at the movies. The real world lies to us visually all the time. An onslaught of photographs and videos are presented as verified visual evidence without the verification part. It happens everywhere around the world, every day. And I wonder if it's altering, and corroding, the bargain we make with the movies we see. Can honest fakery in the name of film escapism compete with the other kinds of fakery permeating our visual lives? 'It's an interesting question,' says University of California-Berkeley computer science professor Hany Farid, a specialist in digital forensics and manipulated media detection. 'It was easier to separate the movies from real life in the analog days, before digital. Now we live in a world where everything we see and hear can be manipulated.' The real-world stakes are high, Farid warns, because so much evidence in courts of law rests on the truthfulness of visual evidence presented. He says he's been asked to verify a dizzying number of photos for a variety of purposes. The questions never end: 'Is this image really from Gaza? Is this footage from Ukraine real? Is the image Donald Trump holds up on TV real, or manipulated for political purposes?' Farid's referring there to the alleged and quickly debunked veracity of the photo the president held up on camera during his March 2025 ABC News interview with Terry Moran. In the photo, Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, deported to an El Salvadoran prison, is shown as having 'MS-13' gang-signifying tattoos on his hand. The image, widely cited as having been altered, doesn't qualify as a deepfake, Farid says. 'It's not even a shallow-fake.' Manipulated images and audio have been with us as long as technology has made those images and sounds possible. Not long ago, manipulated falsehood and verifiable visual truth were a little easier to parse. 'When we went to the movies,' Farid says, 'we knew it wasn't real. The world was bifurcated: There were movies, which were entertainment, and there was reality, and they were different. What's happened is that they've started to bleed into each other. Our ground, our sense of reality, is not stable anymore.' Part of that is artificial intelligence, 'no question,' says Farid. 'Generative AI is not just people creating images that didn't exist or aren't what they're pretending to be. They accumulate to the point where we're living in a world in which everything is suspect. Trust is shaken, if not gone.' And here's the blurred line concerning the movies and real life, Farid says. Earlier, 'when we viewed images and video, or listened to audio, we thought they were real and generally we were right. And when we went to the movies, we knew the opposite: that they weren't real. Reality and entertainment — two different worlds. Now, though, they're bleeding into each other. The ground is not stable anymore.' That, in Farid's view, has a lot to do with contemporary American politics and a climate of strategic mistrust created by those in power. 'The outright lying,' he says, is 'dangerous for democracy and for society. And it makes the idea of believing in movies sort of weird.' Our entertainment can't get enough of AI as a villain right now. On HBO, we have 'Mountainhead' with its Muskian creator of next-generation deepfake software too good to pass up, or slow down. Meantime, the plot of the new 'Mission: Impossible' hinges on AI so fearsome and ambitious, the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Though, for some of us, seeing Ethan Hunt dangle from a biplane, however rickety the narrative excuses for that to happen, is more fun. So we turn, still, to the movies for honest fakery we can trust. But these are strange days. As Farid puts it: 'You sit in the theater, you immerse yourself in the fantasy. But so much of our real world feels like that now — a fantasy.' Maybe it's time to retire the phrase 'seeing is believing.' ——— (Michael Phillips is the Chicago Tribune film critic.) ———
