Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Basic Stats
Release Date: December 21, 2011
Budget: $145 Million
Box Office Results
Opening weekend: $12.7 Million (IMAX pre-release)
Christmas long weekend: $44 Million
Domestic box office: $209 Million
Global box office: $694 Million
*Best box office results for Tom Cruise until Top Gun: Maverick
Cast and Director
Director: Brad Bird
Writers: Josh Applebaum, Andre Nemec
Cast
- Tom Cruise
- Paula Patton
- Simon Pegg
- Jeremy Renner
- Michael Nyqvist
- Vladimir Mashkov
Overview
M:I-4 came at a rough time for Tom Cruise in the movie industry. Disappointing results and personal controversies had studio execs pushing to move Cruise on from the series’ leading role. Cruise remained undaunted.
Wanting to collaborate again with M:I-III director JJ Abrams, Cruise brought him and his studio, Bad Robot, in to produce the next film. Cruise absolutely loved The Incredibles and decided to bring in director Brad Bird to do his first live action film.
Bird brought a clear vision of what he wanted and what he didn’t want for an M:I movie. He wanted an action movie that could quickly flip between humor, action, seriousness, and back again.
Instead of being Cruise’s swan song, M:I- Ghost Protocol became his most successful box office movie at that time, and the highest grossing movie in the franchise.
Plot Summary
Observations
- This is the movie where M:I finally hit its stride and found it’s niche and voice. It stands on the back of 3, but takes it to the next level.
- This is the funniest film in the franchise. It has a light touch and a fun, enjoyable tone.
- Bird wanted to show the IMF team when everything goes wrong. Consequently, every piece of technology throughout the movie fails the team at some point.
- After masks dominated the first half of the franchise, in this movie, no one on the team where’s a mask, and only one appears in the whole movie.
- This was the first M:I movie where the bad guy wasn’t a current or former IMF agent
Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths
- Ghost Protocol was the most visually spectacular film in series to that point.
- Stunts sequences brought the franchise up to a whole new level and provided the visual motif for the franchise going forward
- The humor was perfectly timed.
- Expanded role for Simon Pegg was well deserved.
- Burj Kalifa (more on this later)
- Train car interior was way cool.
Weaknesses
- Not all plot threads fully connect
- Michael Nyqvist’s bad guy “Kurt Hendricks” was underutilized, leading to a less than menacing villain
- Roping in of a random arms dealer to connect the team to Hendricks seemed an unnecessary complication.
Memorable Scenes
Climbing the Burj Kalifa
When JJ Abrams was in Dubai to promote his reboot of Star Trek in 2009, he took one look at the city and the Burj Kalifa, and said, “We have to do something here.” Mission Impossible and Tom Cruise were the right opportunity.
Originally, they thought they would only be able to shoot a little bit of the scene on the actual tower and do the rest with vfx, but when they got there, they realized they could shoot everything on the building, and in fact, they had to. With the exception of two small sequences, the entire scene was filmed on the actual building, 130 stories up, with Tom Cruise actually climbing the building. What resulted was perhaps the most visually spectacular scene not only in the series, but perhaps in modern action movies.
Facts on the scene
- Crew and actors set up shop in several unfinished floors
- Cruise often spent a long time out on wires swinging and hanging out on the building at a height greater than the Empire State Building.
- To get the shots looking down the building, the crew knew they’d need to knock out a window. They were given permission to knock out one window. They ended up knocking out 26!
- Tom Cruise not only climbed the building for the film, but when he wasn’t filming he climbed up to the very top of the antenna, and autographed the top.
- The movie special features have a great behind the scenes breakdown of the scene. Here’s a clip that will give you some idea.
Car Park Ending
To shoot this scene, they actually built a fully functioning car park inside a warehouse studio. While not as spectacular at he Dubai scene, the car park ending is unique and interesting.
The Kremlin Explodes
This was the first scene filmed for the movie. A castle in Prague doubled as the Kremlin for the film. I love the effect of the ground bubbling up before the full explosion. I also love the quick, on-the-fly outfit change.
Facts and Tidbits
- Title sequence shows the fuse weaving through various scenes from the movie. Something similar was done in Skyfall.
- The long-haired blond henchman from the first M:I movie returned. They were trying to get Vanessa Redgrave who played Max to return as well, but the studio wouldn’t pay for her.
- The prison scene had to be made up on the spot the day of filming due to the location challenges.
- Ethan bouncing the rock off of his cell walls was a nod to The Great Escape.
- The studio originally wanted Ethan Hunt to be named Secretary at the end.
- Check out the awesome Light the Fuse podcast for great details on Ghost Protocol and all things Mission: Impossible
Discussion Video
Listen to Rob Dunham and myself discuss our thoughts on Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
