Watch Tom Cruise Attempt ‘The Biggest Stunt in History’

The YouTube video title bills it as “The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History.” I don’t know if that’s true. Probably a historian of stunt work can fact-check that. But either way, what you’re about to see attempted is definitely extreme, and totally ridiculous: Tom Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff and then base jumping to the ground. Over … and over … and over.

This nine-minute featurette below essentially shows the entire process behind this absurd endeavor from concept to execution as part of the production of the upcoming Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One. Cruise claims he’s been working on the stunt for years, and wanted to do it since he “was a little kid.” Director Christopher McQuarrie calls it “far and away the most dangerous thing we’ve ever attempted” — and based on the footage, that statement does not seem far-fetched.

But it’s not just the danger, it’s the ridiculous amount of preparation and work that supposedly went into just this single stunt. During the video, they claim Cruise did 500 skydives and 13,000 motorcross jumps, all to figure out pull off this one sequence.

You can see the process and much of the result for yourself here:

I assumed we’d get to the end of this and they’d say, well if you want to see Tom Cruise jump this bike off this cliff, go see the movie. But, no you see him do it over and over, so presumably it must look even more spectacular in the film. (And of course this doesn’t provide the context within the story — one would assume Ethan Hunt must have an extremely good reason to drive a motorcross bike off a cliff into a base jump, although for the life of me, I cannot conceive of one. Then again, does it really matter?)

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is currently scheduled for release exclusively in theaters on July 14, 2023. The sequel is supposed to follow on June 28, 2024. (If this is what happens in Part One, how do they top that in Part Two?!?) Here is the trailer for Dead Reckoning 1 that was released a few months ago…