3 days ago
Tom Cruise Sets Guinness World Record for ‘Most Burning Parachute Jumps'
Tom Cruise's jaw-dropping and fiery stuntwork in 'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning' has landed him in the Guinness Book of World Records for most burning parachute jumps by an individual.
The actor and producer has undertaken a number of death-defying stunts in the hit action franchise, but he raised the bar again this year by jumping out of a helicopter 16 times while strapped to a parachute that was pre-soaked in fuel and subsequently set on fire. The stunt required him to cut away the charred remnants of the first chute and safely deploy a backup, all in mid-air.
'Tom doesn't just play action heroes – he is an action hero,' Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records, said on Thursday.
'A large part of his success can be chalked up to his absolute focus on authenticity and pushing the boundaries of what a leading man can do. It's an honor to be able to recognize his utter fearlessness with this new Guinness World Records title,' he continued.
The stunt required multiple takes because the parachute could only burn for 2.5 to 3 seconds before completely disintegrating, Guinness noted.
'The audience can tell when something's been cheated, so it's important to be doing it all for-real,' added Wade Eastwood, the second unit director and stunt coordinator for 2018's 'Mission: Impossible – Fallout.'
That film saw Cruise become the first actor to ever complete a HALO (High Altitude, Low Open) drop on camera. The stunt team used an actual military tactic of flying extremely high to 25,000 ft, then dropping the actor, who plummets downwards at 200 MPH to below 2,000 ft before deploying his parachute to sneak into a country without being detected.
Previous stunts Cruise performed as spy Ethan Hunt include scaling the Burj Khalifa in 2011's 'Ghost Protocol' and the now relatively low-key feat of hanging off a sheer cliff face in 'Mission: Impossible 2.'
Watch the featurette on the stunt in the embedded video above.
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