tom cruise zero gravity stunt

Tom Cruise’s Zero-Gravity Stunt in ‘The Mummy’ Took 64 Takes

By Brent Lang

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Tom Cruise is committed.

For a plane crash sequence in “ The Mummy ,” the actor’s upcoming monster movie, Cruise did 64 takes in zero gravity. The sequence took two days to shoot and four high-altitude flights, the filmmakers said during a trailer presentation on Wednesday at CinemaCon .

“There was a lot of barfing,” said Alex Kurtzman , the film’s writer and director.

Cruise was offered the option to do the scene on a sound stage, but he insisted on filming the sequence in zero gravity, believing it was important that audiences got the most realistic experience possible.

“He did not barf,” said co-star Annabelle Wallis at the Universal Pictures presentation, who said much of the 64-person crew became sick to their stomachs. Wallis also held down her lunch, but credited Cruise with being a gentleman.

“I was happy to have Tom on hand to hold back the hair, if needed,” Wallis said.

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Jake Johnson, who plays Cruise’s sidekick in the film, said the star pressured actors to do their own stunts. That led to a few scrapes and bruises.

“We jump off buildings … and Tom really does it all,” said Johnson. “My character dies. I almost died.”

It’s not Cruise’s first death-defying stunt. For the “Mission: Impossible” series, the actor has strapped himself to the side of a plane and scaled the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.

“The Mummy” opens on June 9, 2017.

Watch a featurette of the stunt.

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Tom Cruise’s Most Insane Stunt Yet: the Zero Gravity Scene in The Mummy

We've written about the insane dedication Tom Cruise has put in to accomplishing the most ambitious practical stunts, rivaling some of the work of the very best stunt performers. When we interviewed stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood about Cruise's work on Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation, he talked about all the ways Cruise is consistently prepared and extremely hard working. What Cruise wants is to make the audience feel as if what they're watching is real, beacuse in many cases, it more or less is. 

His most infamous stunts are the stuff of legend now. How about the time  Cruise free-climbed the Burj Khalifa (the world’s tallest building)? Or what about when he gripped the outside of a transport plane—eight times—while it took off.   Cruise has also hung from Utah’s jagged Dead Horse Point by his fingertips,  made free-water dives of 130 ft., leaped from a Triumph Speed Triple motorcycle to tackle a co-star mid-flight, and dangled on the 800-ft. edge of Iceland’s Earl’s Peak for  Oblivion.  He's done more, we just want to get to his latest stunt. 

In Universal's upcoming  The Mummy,  Cruise got to fulfill a career-long dream—to film a scene in zero gravity. The stunt turned out to be his biggest, most demanding achievement date. To capture one of the most terrifying plane crash sequences ever put to film, Cruise, his co-stars and the crew had to film it at an altitude of 20,000 feet.  

First, behold the scene, and note that 90% of this was shot practically, as in, without the help of CGI in post production. These are real bodies tumbling around in zero gravity, smashing into stuff, under the guidance of an astronaut and using a state-of-the-art parabolic plane. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYkEa9Z0k5w                           

Universal has broken down the process for how they filmed that terrifying scene. Below, we've provided the most salient details:

Almost four miles above sea level, Cruise, co-star Annabelle Wallis and key crew—all under the eye of The Mummy director/producer Alex Kurtzman—lensed a sequence that is impossible to shoot on land.

Off the coast of France near Bordeaux—over two days and multiple flights—pilots and astronauts of Novespace Airbus (A-310) took the company 20,000 ft. high. From this altitude, they climbed rapidly to a 50-degree angle to just over 25,000 feet; there, the plane reduced thrust, and free fell from the sky.

For 22-23 seconds during the ballistic phase, the company felt weightless. As the Airbus free fell, cast and crew balanced dialogue, camerawork and choreography for a crucial plane-crash scene that will appear in the film.

For the stunt, the pilots enacted a total of 60 parabolas (repeated weightlessness sessions).  Each parabola allowed for the filming of a key sequence in the scene. At least 90% of the plane crash sequence is practical. The only visual effects will be added in post-production and blend sets together so they look the same size and scale.

PARABOLIC FLIGHTS/AIRBUS ZERO-G TECH FACTS

Under the direction of European Space Agency astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy, crew filmed with Novespace, founder of the first parabolic (Zero Gravity) flights in Europe.

The Zero-G Airbus is the only plane in the world manned by three pilots simultaneously: one controls pitch, one controls the wings and one controls thrust.

The “pull-up” phase starts at full thrust and max speed from level flight until a 50-degree incline, before the “injection” phase and beginning of weightless (actual freefall, not floating). During “pull up,” those aboard feel twice their weight on Earth.

The aircraft is briefly injected into orbit, following an elliptical trajectory above the Earth, so passengers live the true weightlessness that astronauts feel.

This, folks, is how you make a plane-crash sequence that feels real. And while many of Cruise's most terrifying stunts have been solo acts, here he shares the scene with his co-stars  and  the crew, who were on the plane with him. 

The Mummy  crashes into theaters on June 9, 2017.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bryan Abrams

Bryan Abrams is the Editor-in-chief of The Credits.  He's run the site since its launch in 2012. He lives in New York.

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The older Tom Cruise gets, the more he seems intent on pushing the boundaries of making movies to places they've never been before. In the Mission: Impossible films in particular, he's hung off the side of a tower in Dubai, and clutched onto the exterior of cargo plane upon take off. For Mission: Impossible 6 , producer David Ellison says Cruise has been training for a year for the film's marquee stunt scene .

Of course, Cruise, 54, works on other action films outside of the M:I franchise, but that doesn't mean he takes time off from his stunning stunt work. During filming for the June release of The Mummy , Cruise wasn't necessarily in danger of losing his life during the filming of a zero-gravity plane crash sequence - but apparently, he was at risk of losing his lunch.

Talking with Variety at CinemaCon Wednesday, Mummy director Alex Kurtzman says "there was a lot of barfing" during the filming of the sequence – but Cruise's co-star Annabelle Wallis says the action movie icon wasn't one of them. Wallis did add, though, that many of the 64-person crew filming the stunt sequence did toss their cookies.

Ironically, the number 64 applied to the stunt shoot in more ways than one. Cruise did 64 takes of the zero-gravity sequence, which Variety says was shot over two days and four high-altitude flights. True to Cruise form, the actor refused the option to shoot the sequence on a sound stage, but opted for the real thing to heighten the audience experience.

Cruise introduced a new trailer for The Mummy at CinemaCon Wednesday via a video appearance, promising a “ bold, romantic, epic, terrifying monster film ." The film also stars Kingsman: The Secret Service and Star Trek Beyond actress Sofia Boutella as Ahmanet – the mummy in the film's title. Boutella said during a panel that, “ Playing a monster was really interesting to me, but also the fact that the mummy was a woman. Whenever something happens, there’s always a monster within us."

While news of the extent Cruise went to the zero-gravity scene is exciting enough, fans should be particularly happy that the energetic actor is stretching his limits of his film roles even further to include a bona fide horror film. True, he played Lestat in Interview With the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles in 1994, but that horror thriller had a decidedly different tone that was more Gothic in nature.

With The Mummy , Cruise is clearly going for horror-inspired scares, and treating audiences to genuine thrills with the type of physical acting he does best. It's not often where a movie frightens an audience equally as much as the scary thoughts Cruise's stunt work evokes.

NEXT: Can Non-Superhero Cinematic Universes Work?

Source: Variety

Key Release Dates

• The Mummy (2017)

The Mummy director on Tom Cruise, zero-gravity stunts and Universal's Dark Universe

It's no secret that Tom Cruise does his own stunts. But you might be surprised to learn he shot The Mummy's "brutal" plane crash scene in zero-gravity, in a real aircraft that was actually hurtling towards the Earth.

And he did it 60 times.

"You're essentially in astronaut training. The free-fall you go weightless, but when gravity returns, it returns at twice your weight," director Alex Kurtzman says.

Kurtzman sat down with the ABC to talk about the "vomit comet", the history-making move to make the Mummy a woman, and what's behind the door to the new Dark Universe — think the Avengers, but evil.

Here's five things we learned . (Warning: there's a few spoilers ahead.)

A superstar had to die

Well, kind of.

Death, it turns out, is just the beginning for Cruise's adventurer Nick Morton, who revives an ancient Egyptian curse and awakens the evil Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella).

Kurtzman wanted the film to be genuinely scary. To make that happen, he says he had no choice but to kill off the hero .

"I'm the biggest Tom Cruise fan ever, so I know exactly what you expect from his movies — for him to save the day," he said.

"When you remove that, and you say 'actually he may not be able to save the day', then it becomes very unpredictable and exciting.

"For me to be scared, my lead character has to be in the kind of jeopardy that I don't believe he or she could get out of."

The intense crash scene is surprisingly real

These days we expect our action stories to be told with more than a little help from green-screens and CGI. But that wasn't the case in the plane crash scene, which Kurtzman says is 90 per cent real .

If it looks like the actors are weightless, it's because they actually were.

To pull off the stunt, the crew converted an Airbus from NoveSpace — traditionally used by NASA to train astronauts — and decked it out with custom-designed padding to make it look like the inside of a real plane.

In the skies over France, the plane climbed "literally at the speed of a rocket" to 25,000 feet. There, it reduced thrust and fell from the sky .

For 22 seconds, the cast and crew felt weightless.

As the plane plummeted towards the ground, they did their best to balance dialogue and choreography — though they were at the mercy of physics , so that was often easier said than done.

"The thing about shooting in zero-gravity is you really don't know what's going to happen when you're free-falling back towards Earth," Kurtzman said.

"The unpredictability of it is what makes it magical.

"It puts the audience in the middle of that moment. To make them feel the sheer terror, without any cuts — to me that was a way to do the scene that felt totally different."

The process was repeated 60 times over two days, leaving Cruise and co-star Annabelle Wallis battered and bruised.

"The pressure on your body is incredible," Kurtzman said.

Ever been on a vomitron ride ? It was like that, Kurtzman says, but dialled up to the extreme.

Kurtzman says some of the 40 crew members were vomiting while holding lights and rigs in place.

"They don't call it the vomit comet for nothing," he laughs.

This isn't a remake of the Brendan Fraser hit

You'd be forgiven for thinking (or even hoping) that this Mummy is a remake of the playful 1999 film of the same name.

But, Kurtzman laughs, you'd be very wrong.

His film, he says, doesn't tread over old ground — though that doesn't stop it giving a nod to the past .

Kurtzman pays quiet homage to Karl Freund's 1932 classic as he reimagines the anti-hero for the modern age.

"One of the main Mummy powers is the power to mesmerise — to get inside someone's head and make them do things they don't even realise they're doing," he said.

"In Freund's film there are some absolutely gorgeous close-ups on [actor Boris Karloff] and his mesmerising eyes, and we took inspiration from that.

"There was also a dagger prominently involved, which is a significant part of our film."

Making the Mummy a woman was 'everything'

Kurtzman initially struggled to bring something new to the familiar character.

"I'd been playing around with different stories in which the character was a man, and I wasn't able to pull out something that felt different enough — and you don't want to make the movie unless you feel like its fresh," he said.

He finally listened to the voice in his head telling him to "make it a woman". The move to flip the genders , he says, "was everything".

"I found a way to come up with a story that really felt topical," he said.

"She was promised to be the next pharaoh, and that was taken away from her because she's a woman. I love that she's so unapologetic about taking what she believes she deserves."

One of Kurtzman's favourite things about iconic monsters like the Mummy is that you recognise their deep struggle between the dark and light, and find a way to love them while you fear them .

"Hopefully the audience can relate to Ahmanet, understand her, empathise with her and see why she's angry — and also recognise that she's crossing a line that most of us would never cross," Kuztman said.

Algerian actress Boutella says she connected with the human inside her monster.

"Her back was put up against a wall, but she's a survivor who has been trapped for 5,000 years. Everyone wants to live," she said in a statement.

The door to a Dark Universe is now open

Universal made its name as a studio in the 1930s, '40s and '50s with monster films like Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Wolf Man and Dracula.

It's now rebooting many of those classics in a bid to rival the likes of Marvel's Cinematic Universe — which includes The Avengers and is the most lucrative film franchise of all time.

The Mummy opens the door to the Dark Universe. (Yes, that honour technically went to 2014's Dracula Untold, but Universal has quietly swept that epic flop under the carpet.)

"I love these movies, I've loved them since I was a kid. To get to bring them to a new generation is exciting, and to bring them back to a generation that grew up with them is also exciting," Kurtzman said.

Javier Bardem has signed on to play Frankenstein's Monster and Johnny Depp will be the Invisible Man.

Aside from Cruise as Morton — an entirely new character — The Mummy gives us a first look at Russell Crowe as Doctor Jekyll.

He heads up an organisation called Prodigium, which has been charged with tracking the world's monsters. He's the common thread in the shared universe — Universal's answer to Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Over time you'll see that there is a connection between Dr Jekyll and a lot of these other characters that embody 'evil'," Crowe said in a statement.

"There is a lot to find out about Jekyll, and it was a complicated journey to get where is is at this point in time."

Kurtzman is excited to work on more films in the series, which we already know will continue with Bride of Frankenstein in 2019.

But for now, he's happy enjoying the moment — and looking back on what it was like to direct Cruise and Crowe .

At times, he says, it felt more unbelievable than his movie script.

"They are very old friends — they met in Australia many years ago. It was fun — and they are two of the most experienced actors I have ever worked with," he said.

"So as a director you inherit the benefit of all that experience. And directing them in fight scenes — it was a dream come true."

The Mummy hits Australian cinemas on June 8.

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'The Mummy' Featurette Reveals The Difficulty Of Shooting In Zero Gravity

Anyone who loves Tom Cruise knows that the actor can't help but tackle some kind of crazy new stunt for his blockbuster action movies. They've become a staple of the Mission: Impossible franchise, and now he's bringing that same spectacle to The Mummy .

In the new action adventure tentpole that will mark the beginning of a Universal Monsters cinematic universe, there will be a zero gravity action sequence that takes place in a cargo plane. We've already gotten a taste of this sequence in the first trailer for The Mummy and the featurette that arrived shortly thereafter . Now a new behind the scenes video gives us a closer look at The Mummy zero gravity stunt.

It's a short featurette, but seeing how the crew dresses the plane for the scene is an interesting tidbit. Even more fascinating is seeing the rest of the crew (including the cameraman and the guy holding on to him so he doesn't float erratically) trying to do their job while Tom Cruise and Annabelle Wallis fly around in front of them.

This kind of zero gravity filming is traditionally reserved for movies that are set in space, and even then instances when the plane known as the "vomit comet" is used, those sequences are few and far between, and the scenes in question are not very long. But this sequence is an extensive one, and Tom Cruise wanted to shoot as much as possible in the plane that creates zero gravity.

If you want to know more, you can find out about how the sequence came together right here .

The Mummy hits theaters on June 9 .

Tom Cruise Performs Crazy Zero-Gravity Stunt In The Mummy

When it comes to doing his own stunts, Tom Cruise is an absolute madman. In Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol , he climbed up the side of the world's tallest building, and in Rogue Nation , he strapped himself onto an airplane and went at least 1,000 feet up in the air. But his superhero abilities aren't just limited to Mission: Impossible movies. According to Variety , Cruise got pretty extreme while filming The Mummy , eschewing a sound stage for a zero-gravity plane.

If you've seen the trailer , then you know there's an intense scene in The Mummy where a flock of birds brings down a massive transport plane, causing everyone on board to fly wildly around the cabin. At first, you might be tempted to think you're looking at some CGI trickery, but rest assured, it's 100 percent real. The cast and crew actually boarded a plane and took four separate flights to simulate a zero-g environment. The shoot took two days, and they needed a staggering 64 takes to do the scene properly. And needless to say, this was all Cruise's idea. In fact, the sequence was supposed to be shot safely on the ground, but the actor wanted to bring some terrifying realism to the scene. Naturally, all that floating around made quite a few people lose their lunch, but according to actress Annabelle Wallis, Cruise "did not barf."

Of course he didn't. He's Tom Cruise.

If you're interested in seeing a bit of behind-the-scenes footage of this crazy stunt, check out the featurette above. And while you're waiting for The Mummy to rise from its sarcophagus on June 9, be sure to check out some movie stunts that went horribly wrong .

Few People Will Ever Be As Happy As Tom Cruise Going Zero-G For A Stunt In ‘The Mummy’ Happy

Tom Cruise is a 54-year-old man who has seen it all and done it all. He’s been on top of Hollywood for over thirty years, he finds great satisfaction in his religion , and he’s making blockbuster after blockbuster while doing all of his own stunts. You would think he’d be numb to the magic of moviemaking by now, but no — Tom Cruise loves it . He’s overjoyed at the prospect of trying out something new for the sake of movie magic.

Simply put, few people will ever be as happy as Tom Cruise preparing to go zero-G for a stunt in The Mummy . Look at him. Just look at him. While the rest of the cast seems slightly amused that they’re about to use barf bags for the first time in their lives, Tom Cruise is wishing he had a couch to jump on (it’s the only way he knows how to truly show off how happy he is):

The man is a walking Zoloft pill mixed with one of the many dogs who played Air Bud (RIP). Props to him for being able to get up and do the damn thing time and time again, but typically a plane doing this: Doesn’t lead to a human reacting like this: But Tom Cruise is a special guy, and it’s a small sacrifice for what looks to be an incredible stunt. Universal’s kicking off their monster universe in style, eh?

How Many Takes Tom Cruise Did Of His The Mummy Zero Gravity Stunt

It's common knowledge how much Tom Cruise loves doing his own stunts in films. He really likes doing things practically rather than with CGI. However, his big zero-gravity moment in The Mummy apparently took quite a bit of time to get right. Tom Cruise apparently went weightless 64 times in order to get all the footage we see in the final film. The good news is that Cruise didn't throw up even once during the entire process. The same cannot be said for other members of the cast and crew. According to director Alex Kurtzman ...

There was a lot of barfing.

To simulate weightlessness, a plane has to go up very high into the air, and then drop at a fairly steep angle and high speed in order to throw everything inside the plane into a state that is similar to zero gravity. Generally speaking, such movements can have negative impacts on the contents of your stomach, which, according to Crusie's co-star Annabelle Wallis ' comments at CinemaCon ( via Variety ) lead several people to be sick while filming.

Of course, even the steeliest stomach can begin to weaken when you have to do 64 takes. It's not too surprising when you think about it. The period of weightlessness that this method provides is fairly minimal, causing the plane to have to climb and dive again and again. Since the scene in the trailer alone, which likely isn't the entire scene, shows us several seconds of weightlessness, it likely means that several takes would have been necessary in order to string the entire scene together, even if each one had been perfect. Add to that the fact that being thrown around an airplane, by its very nature is the sort of situation that can be difficult to control and it's far from shocking if many takes got ruined when the actors had trouble doing what they needed to do.

One wonders if Tom Crusie may have regretted his decision to do the stunt practically around take 30 or so. Anabelle Wallis admitted that the actor was given the option to do the stunt on a soundstage but that Crusie opted for the real thing. Wallis did not discuss how she felt about his decision. According to Wallis...

Tom is renowned for making sure that the audience gets the most out of their cinematic experience. So when it came to doing this sequence we had options to do it on a stage. Tom, in his glory and slight madness, was adamant that he wanted it to be done on a plane in zero gravity.

Tom Cruise has hung from buildings and airplanes in the Mission: Impossible movies and has said one of his conditions for ever doing a Top Gun sequel would be the ability to actually get up in the air inside the fighter jets. It's clear that he loves the physical side of acting in action films. We'll get to see all his crazy stunts in The Mummy when the movie is released June 9.

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Tom Cruise Reveals He Did Zero-Gravity Stunt For The Mummy, 64 Times

Tom Cruise has revealed what it took to pull off a zero gravity stunt for The Mummy, the upcoming [...]

By John Connor Coulston - June 2, 2017 05:56 pm EDT

Tom Cruise has revealed what it took to pull off a zero gravity stunt for The Mummy , the upcoming film that kicks off Universal Pictures' "Dark Universe" of monster movies.

The 54-year-old actor , who plays adventurer Nick Morton in the film, and his co-star Annabelle Wallis were guests on The Graham Norton Show and spoke about the incredible stunt, which involved the actors filming in a "zero gravity" plane to simulate the plane crash. The actors did not use stunt doubles and had to shoot the intense scene dozens of times.

"I had to convince the studio to let me do it, and Annabelle and I had to do the scene 64 times," Cruise said, according to the Daily Mail . "It took us two days and the crew was flying around and vomiting in between takes. You couldn't train for this.

"Normally stunts take months of prepping but we just did it. It was wild and I can't believe the studio actually let me do it."

Wallis also touched on the elaborate scene and the experience working with Cruise

Up Next: The Mummy's London Premiere Canceled After Manchester Attack

"If you get any job you are excited but doing a stunt with him that he has never done before is just incredible. And, not vomiting on him!"

Cruise previously dished on the stunt in a behind-the-scenes featurette, which can be watched above. As the crew shows that the set was like during the zero gravity scene, Cruise chimes in about his experience.

"We had to prepare as much as we could, but then we don't quite know what's going to happen," he said. "We want it to be wild, and violent and spontaneous for an audience. They're seeing it, it's happening in real time."

More: 7 Best Movie Remakes Ever Made

The Mummy is the first film in Universal's rebooted line of monster films, entitled the "Dark Universe." Mummy co-stars Russell Crowe and Sofia Boutella will join Cruise in the film universe, along with Johnny Depp and Javier Bardem.

The Mummy opens in theaters June 9, 2017. The film currently has a 3.79/5 Anticipation Ranking with our users. Let us know if you're excited for the film and its zero-gravity stunt by ranking your anticipation here .

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Tom Cruise’s Zero-Gravity Stunt in ‘The Mummy’ Took 64 Takes

Tom Cruise is committed.

For a plane crash sequence in “ The Mummy ,” the actor’s upcoming monster movie, Cruise did 64 takes in zero gravity. The sequence took two days to shoot and four high-altitude flights, the filmmakers said during a trailer presentation on Wednesday at CinemaCon .

“There was a lot of barfing,” said Alex Kurtzman , the film’s writer and director.

Cruise was offered the option to do the scene on a sound stage, but he insisted on filming the sequence in zero gravity, believing it was important that audiences got the most realistic experience possible.

“He did not barf,” said co-star Annabelle Wallis at the Universal Pictures presentation, who said much of the 64-person crew became sick to their stomachs. Wallis also held down her lunch, but credited Cruise with being a gentleman.

“I was happy to have Tom on hand to hold back the hair, if needed,” Wallis said.

Jake Johnson, who plays Cruise’s sidekick in the film, said the star pressured actors to do their own stunts. That led to a few scrapes and bruises.

“We jump off buildings … and Tom really does it all,” said Johnson. “My character dies. I almost died.”

It’s not Cruise’s first death-defying stunt. For the “Mission: Impossible” series, the actor has strapped himself to the side of a plane and scaled the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.

“The Mummy” opens on June 9, 2017.

Watch a featurette of the stunt.

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Tom Cruise's amazing stunts from 'Mission: Impossible' to 'Top Gun: Maverick'

Following is a transcript of the video: 

Narrator: In this scene from "Mission: Impossible -- Fallout," Ethan Hunt jumps 25,000 feet out of a plane before landing in Paris. A risky move like this would normally require a stunt double, but that's actually Tom Cruise, and that background behind him is not a green screen.

The actor is famous for almost always doing his own stunts, no matter how dangerous. From climbing the world's tallest building to hanging off the side of a plane to pulling off perhaps one of the most dangerous helicopter chases ever captured on film, Cruise is always finding new ways to top himself. And he's not stopping anytime soon.

At more than 2,700 feet, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the world's tallest building. So it was only a matter of time before Cruise decided to climb it. For this stunt, the actor had to climb 1,700 feet in the air, so he had to wear a special harness attached to strategic points in the building. To do this, the crew needed to break 26 different windows -- with permission, of course. This harness was so tight, Cruise said it cut off his circulation. The 65-millimeter IMAX cameras and additional helicopter shooting the scene only had a limited amount of time to record, so they had to move fast. But Cruise wasn't just climbing the building. He also had to fall four stories and run down the surface of the building in a move known as an Australian rappel. All of this required a lot of preparation. Cruise practiced by climbing up a makeshift glass wall heated with artificial lights to replicate the hot temperature of the windows on the Burj Khalifa. Stunt coordinator Gregg Smrz estimated that Cruise and the crew put in at least 200 hours of rehearsal time. This isn't Cruise's first experience climbing, however. In 2000's "Mission: Impossible 2," he climbed a 2,000-foot cliff in Utah attached to nothing but a thin safety rope and had to jump 15 feet from one cliff to another.

The stunts in "Edge of Tomorrow" were tough, but it was actually the costume that made it even more so. Throughout the film, Cruise's character wears metal exoskeleton armor, something that typically might be added on through CGI. But Cruise wore a real suit, sometimes for up to six hours a day straight. One version weighed 85 pounds, and another version weighed around 130 pounds, thanks to a sniper rifle and missile launcher on the back. Here's what Cruise normally looks like running in a scene. Compare that to this shot of him and his costar Emily Blunt running while both wore the suits. In another stunt for the film, the actor was attached to a wire and thrown across the room while wearing it. To take some of the weight off and help them run more easily, Cruise and Blunt were often attached to cables. It took Cruise 30 minutes to get into the suit and 30 to get out. The team eventually got that down to around 30 seconds.

While Cruise had plenty of experience flying planes in "Top Gun," in "Rogue Nation," he decided to go into the air in a rather unconventional and more terrifying way. For the film's opening scene, he had to cling onto the side of an Airbus A400M that took him up 1,000 feet at a speed of 100 knots for six to eight minutes. The plane took off, did a complete circuit, and landed -- all with Tom Cruise secured to the side with this wire that would later be erased in postproduction. Because the plane went so high into the air, Cruise had to wear special contacts to protect his eyes from flying debris and strong gusts of wind. Plus, the crew had to make sure takeoff conditions were absolutely clear. If they ran into even a single bird or some rocks on the runway, it could severely injure the actor. The stunt had to be performed over and over again until the actor, director, and crew felt they got it right. For Cruise, he didn't feel confident in the take until he had gone up eight times.

The fifth "Mission" entry contained not one but two death-defying stunts, this one involving military-style preparation. In the film, Ethan Hunt needs to open an underwater vault. The vault itself was created using CGI, but Cruise still needed to work underwater for the sequence, which clocks in at just about six minutes long. He started by jumping off a 120-foot ledge into a tank filled 20 feet high with water. Then Cruise needed to film takes while holding his breath for four to six minutes. According to Cruise, most underwater sequences might have an actor hold their breath for up to 10 seconds, so this was definitely a challenge. He trained with free-diving expert Kirk Krack on a breath-hold special operations program designed for military personnel. Part of his training involved breathing exercises that would lower his standard heart rate, essentially training his body to use less oxygen. And he wouldn't just be sitting in the water during the shoot -- he would be swimming around. Why so long? Well, they had just 10 days to film the sequence, so director Christopher McQuarrie shot in a series of continuous takes, meaning the actor couldn't easily pop up for air.

While Cruise hasn't gone to space -- yet -- he has performed a zero-gravity stunt. In "The Mummy," he had to hold his breath underwater yet again, dodge explosions, and even fight Russell Crowe. The biggest standout stunt was this sequence, in which a cargo plane plummets to the ground. Cruise was offered the chance to shoot it on a soundstage, but he declined and opted for the real thing. To imitate the experience of the crash where the characters float up into the air, they shot on a plane that NASA typically uses to train astronauts. They decked out the inside of the plane with padding to make it look like a real cargo plane. The plane couldn't go into zero-gravity mode until it was at about 25,000 feet. Once at that position, it would free-fall for 22 seconds. During that time, Cruise endured four high-altitude flights. The sequence was eventually wrapped after a whopping 64 takes. And while Cruise's stunts usually require a lot of rehearsal, the actor actually said that that was quite tough here, as floating in the air makes things unpredictable.

Cruise has flown a plane and hung onto the side of one, but for "Fallout," he also learned to fly a helicopter as part of an aerial chase sequence. The 2018 film contains an array of the actor's most daring stunts, like this motorcycle chase, in which the actor rode through the streets of Paris, sometimes at 100 miles per hour. For the helicopter chase, Ethan Hunt flies through dangerous mountain terrain to stop a nuclear bomb. Before shooting, Cruise worked 16 hours a day to hit the required 2,000 hours of helicopter training. There would be up to 13 helicopters close to each other in the sky at once, so Cruise and the stunt team carefully planned out every little move in advance using these toy helicopters. And the actor needed all the preparation he could get, as he would be acting, piloting, and operating the cameras mounted to the front of his chopper all at the same time. All that planning was crucial, particularly for this 360-degree corkscrew dive, a move that's challenging even for professional pilots. According to Matt Evans, an instructor at the school where Cruise trained, the stunt involves starting with a descent, rolling into a turn, and then holding the turn as you go down. While that's happening, the actor can never take his hands off the controls.

In "Mission: Impossible 2," Cruise's character jumps out of a helicopter, but that scene was shot using a green screen. In "Fallout," Cruise decided to actually jump out of a plane and became the first actor to do a HALO jump on camera. HALO stands for high altitude, low opening. He jumped from a height of over 25,000 feet but didn't open his parachute until he was below 2,000 feet. This military move allows a soldier to jump into battle undetected. The actor practiced in a giant wind tunnel constructed on the set, and then, according to stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood, jumped out of a plane around 100 times. And a trained stunt-camera operator also had to jump out of the plane with Cruise to get the shot. To make sure every facial expression was still visible on camera, the crew developed a special helmet for Cruise with a light in it, allowing him to breathe properly while falling.

In the long-awaited sequel to Tom Cruise's 1986 breakout film, Cruise is back in the cockpit of a fighter plane. The film was shot on real military aircraft carriers, and Cruise flew in real planes. A new camera system allowed the crew to put six IMAX-quality cameras inside the cockpit. In the original "Top Gun," one of the F-14s had three cameras total mounted onto it. But it wasn't just Cruise going solo -- the rest of the cast trained alongside him. Cruise and the rest of the cast needed to actually fly for an even better viewing experience. Despite the potential risks, there are aspects of flying one simply couldn't see if they used green screen, like these distortions in the face.

What's your favorite Tom Cruise stunt? Let us know in the comments.

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Tom Cruise talks doing his own stunts for The Mummy: 'It was wild'

The top gun star is well known for doing many of his own stunts.

Tom Cruise joined The Graham Norton Show  this week to discuss his new film, The Mummy , and opened up about filming in a real zero gravity environment for a stunt. In the episode, which will air on Friday night, the Mission Impossible actor said: "I had to convince the studio to let me do it, and Annabelle and I had to do the scene 64 times! It took us two days and the crew was flying around and vomiting in between takes. You couldn't train for this. Normally stunts take months of prepping but we just did it. It was wild and I can’t believe the studio actually let me do it!"

READ: Tom Cruise confirms Top Gun 2 is happening!

Tom spoke about doing his own stunts

His co-star Annabelle Wallis added: "Can you imagine being cast with Tom Cruise? If you get any job you are excited but doing a stunt with him that he has never done before is just incredible. And, not vomiting on him!" The star opened up about his love of monster films when he was asked why he wanted to make The Mummy , which he called "a classic yarn", he said: "I loved all the old black and white original horror films which I wasn't allowed to watch as a kid. But, I was about six years old and saw all of them and was so terrified I had to sleep on the floor of my sister's bedroom."

READ: Tom Cruise answers question on daughter Suri's future: Find out what he said

Tom also spoke about Mission Impossible 6 , telling Graham: "I have been in training for a couple of years and we've done a lot of testing to see what is possible. It is really crazy. We've shot some of the stuff in Paris already and it is going to be really wild and thrilling for the audience." Tom also recently confirmed that he was making a sequel to Top Gun . Chatting on the Australian breakfast show Sunrise, he said: "I'm going to start filming it probably in the next year. It’s definitely happening."

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This Is the One Tom Cruise Stunt That Failed to Impress

This zero-gravity sequence would have been better without the CGI.

The Big Picture

• The Mummy 's use of CGI in the plane crash sequence undermines the sense of danger and inconsistency of stakes, despite the impressive real stunts performed by the actors.
• Other blockbusters like Mission: Impossible use a combination of practical set pieces and CGI to create a more genuine sense of scale and threat.
• The reliance on CGI effects in The Mummy 's zero-gravity sequence makes it feel safe and fails to capture the same effect as Tom Cruise's stunts in the Mission: Impossible films.

2017’s The Mummy is a mess for a number of reasons. For starters, the supernatural action reboot was supposed to launch the Dark Universe, an interconnected Universal monster movie franchise akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But after the film’s abysmal box office performance, the Dark Universe immediately ended , putting to bed Russell Crowe ’s Jekyll and Hyde, Johnny Depp ’s Invisible Man, Javier Bardem ’s Frankenstein’s Monster, and Angelina Jolie ’s Bride of Frankenstein. The Mummy itself starred Tom Cruise , Annabelle Wallis , and Sofia Boutella as the titular mummy. Directed by Alex Kurtzman , The Mummy sought to infuse the monster movie with Cruise’s signature action stunts from the Mission Impossible movies. However, just from the very first trailer, the film didn’t necessarily look like a modern update from what came before. The preview largely featured the film’s zero gravity sequence, which culminates in Tom Cruise screaming, almost hyperventilating, as an airplane crashes into the ground. While the cast and crew are to be commended for performing the stunt as real as possible, the sequence in the film itself isn’t as daring nor threatening as it is supposed to be.

An ancient Egyptian princess is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension.

The CGI Plane in 'The Mummy' Just Isn’t Convincing

While Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, and the rest of the filmmaking crew actually went up in a plane that simulated a zero gravity nosedive , the shots of the crashing plane in the movie are completely CGI. So while the real stunts are happening inside the cabin, the threat of a crash landing is undermined by the less convincing cuts to the plane’s exterior. Overall, the constant cutting back and forth between the real actors going through the struggle of getting a parachute and the plastic-looking CGI plane makes for an inconsistent sense of stakes. But crashing a real plane would be too much of a hassle, right?

What makes other blockbusters have a more genuine sense of scale and threat is the use of technically practical set pieces. For instance, when Tom Cruise performed the HALO jump in Mission: Impossible - Fallout , he was on an actual plane from which he jumped off alongside the crew who filmed the entire sequence. While there is some CGI involved, specifically the thunderstorm that takes place in the middle of Ethan Hunt’s free fall, the sequence doesn’t cut back and forth between the practical stunt and the CGI that accents the scene. There is a seamless continuity that blends both the real-life danger and the added visual effect.

Sorry Tom Cruise, But This Michelle Yeoh Movie Has the Greatest Motorcycle Stunt

Another example comes from yet another Cruise stunt in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation , during which Cruise actually hung onto the side of a plane as it was lifting off the ground and into the air. The difference between these Mission Impossible stunts and the zero-gravity sequence in The Mummy is that the former engages the real-life environment for its sense of danger while the latter minimizes the stakes through a computer-generated environment. Yes, Cruise and Wallis’ real stunt work inside the plane is impressive, but without a more convincing scene of the plane nosediving, they might as well be in a bounce house or an indoor skydiving attraction.

'The Mummy's Zero-G Sequence Ultimately Felt Safe

The best action sequences are the ones that convince audiences about the imminent danger for both the actors and their characters. That has been the driving philosophy behind many of Tom Cruise’s stunts in the Mission Impossible films. However, combining those action movie stunts with the supernatural threat of a centuries-old mummy and her magic cruses just doesn’t capture the same effect, especially when the dependence on CGI effects outweighs the practical. For another example, there is something to be said about Christopher Nolan ’s choice to recreate the Trinity test and other explosions in Oppenheimer without any CGI. Nolan told Collider , “I think computer graphics, they’re very versatile, they can do all kinds of things, but they tend to feel a bit safe.” While the zero-gravity stunt in The Mummy might have been dangerous in real life, the CGI plane, and its crashing debris ultimately made it feel safe.

The Mummy is currently available to rent or buy on Prime Video in the U.S.

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Sublime stunts and Tom Cruise's coins: 10 EPIC facts about Mission: Impossible

Posted: May 1, 2024 | Last updated: May 1, 2024

The original Mission: Impossible!

All thanks to Tom Cruise

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Ving's near-miss

Apple promotion

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Water stunt

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