Mission: Impossible 7

On January 14, 2019, Cruise announced that the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible films will be shot back-to-back with McQuarrie writing and directing both films for July 23, 2021, and August 5, 2022 releases.[4][5] In February 2019, Ferguson confirmed her return for the seventh installment.[6][7] In September 2019, McQuarrie announced on his Instagram profile that Hayley Atwell had joined the cast.[8] In September 2019, Pom Klementieff joined the cast for both the seventh and eighth films.[9] In December 2019, Simon Pegg confirmed his return for the film, with Shea Whigham cast for both films.[10][11]

Nicholas Hoult was cast in a role in January 2020, along with the addition of Henry Czerny, reprising his role as Eugene Kittridge for the first time since the 1996 film.[12][13] Vanessa Kirby also announced she was returning for both films.[14] In May 2020, it was reported that Esai Morales would replace Hoult as the villain in both films due to scheduling conflicts.[15]

Under the working title Libra,[16] filming was scheduled to begin on February 20, 2020, in Venice, set up to last for three weeks before moving to Rome in mid-March for 40 days,[17][18] but due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, production in the country was halted.[19] Three weeks later, stunt rehearsals began in Surrey, England, just before a hiatus.[20] On July 6, 2020, after another hiatus, crew arriving in the UK were given permission to begin filming without going through the mandatory 14-day quarantine. The set is located at Warner Bros Studios, Leavesden in Hertfordshire.[21]

The following month, similar permission was granted for filming in Møre og Romsdal, Norway.[22] That same month, a large fire broke out on a motorcycle stunt rig in Oxfordshire. The scene had taken six weeks to prepare and was "among one of the most expensive ever filmed in the U.K." No one was hurt in the incident.[23]

Filming began on September 6, 2020,[24] when McQuarrie started to publish pictures from the sets on his Instagram profile.[25] In October 2020, across Norway, when the previous installment was filmed in Preikestolen, including the municipalities of Stranda and Rauma, with Cruise sighted filming an action scene with Esai Morales atop a train.[26] On October 26, 2020, production was halted in Italy after 12 people tested positive for COVID-19 on set. Filming resumed a week later.

In December 2020, during filming in London, an audio recording of Cruise shouting at two production crew members for breaking COVID-19 protocols on set was released online.[27] Cruise was likened to his character Les Grossman from the 2008 film Tropic Thunder as a result.[28][29] Leah Remini called him an “abusive dictator” and blamed Scientology.[30][31]

On December 28, 2020, Variety reported that the film would conclude principal photography at Longcross Film Studios in the United Kingdom with production shifting from Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden. Longcross, which is in Surrey in Southeast England, falls within Tier 4, although productions are allowed to continue under strict COVID-19 protocols.[32]

The 1908 railway bridge over Lake Pilchowickie in southern Poland.

In late 2019, during the pre-production of the film, a rough concept of a sequence set in Alps in Switzerland included a train going 60 miles an hour through a bridge being blown up,[33][34] a reference to the climactic train wreck scene in the 1926 silent film The General.[35] The Swiss government refused to authorize any explosions,[36] therefore the Skydance Media production team embarked on location scouts in different countries to find an unwanted bridge.[34][35] Among those asked to help with staging a "full-scale train crash" was Polish-American film producer Andrew Eksner.[35] In November 2019, the Polish State Railways proposed Eksner to use a 151-meter long, 1908 post-German riveted railway bridge on Lake Pilchowickie [pʲilxɔvʲit͡skʲɛ] [pl; es], in the Jelenia Góra Valley, in Lower Silesia.[37][38] In December 2019, Paramount Pictures producers including McQuarrie landed in southern Poland,[39] accompanied in deep secrecy by officers of the Polish engineering troops.[33] McQuarrie documented the visit on his Instagram profile.[40] For carrying out the Libra project on site, the selected Polish production company Alex Stern was granted a PLN 5.5 million ($1.5 million) cash rebate from the Polish Film Institute.[37][41]

Officially opened in 1912 by Wilhelm II himself, the proposed bridge survived World War II mostly intact,[42] and was used by trains until 2016, when the line was temporarily closed due to the bad condition of the tracks.[43] Despite publicly praising the bridge "extremely valuable,"[44] an expert misrepresented conclusions of a commissioned report,[45] that instead of renovating, it would be best to demolish the bridge before building a new one.[46][47] In March 2020, after rejected Eksner spread the information,[35] local authorities and museum officials were appalled by the producers' intention to physically destroy the bridge, instead of using CGI effects.[37][48] The filmmakers and authorities said the bridge was devastated and intended for demolition anyway.[43]

By July 2020, history and railways enthusiasts protested, as did some scientists, filmmakers, and the regional Monuments Heritage Office, along with members of Polish parliament,[43][49] and the International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage.[50] Activists and NGOs launched a petition against the destruction.[51] And as it was long registered provincially, and now being added into Poland's national Registry of Objects of Cultural Heritage,[48][52] the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage confirmed it was pushing the bridge to play in the movie, with a "small section" to be demolished onset in April 2021, before revitalizing the related local heritage railway line altogether.[53] Following the backlash,[49][54] the General Conservator of Monuments assured there was no question of destroying the bridge.[55]

In August 2020, as the story turned international,[56][57] McQuarrie said there was never a plan to blow up the bridge, and that only unsafe and partially damaged portions could have been destroyed, which needed to be rebuilt, concluding: "To open up the area to tourism, the bridge needed to go."[58] He later added that “there was no disrespect intended.”[59] The production company did not pledge to cover construction costs of a potential new bridge, nor the renovation of the historic one.[43] On August 18, 2020, cultural heritage registration procedures for the Lake Pilchowickie bridge were finalized, effectively preventing it from any damage.[60] Although the Polish State Railways have offered an alternative bridge to be blown up – a disused 1910, 245-meter-long railway bridge over Warta, in west-central Poland[61] – the provincial Conservator initiated its immediate addition into the national Registry.[62][63] In August 2020, the scouting for another bridge was ongoing.[35]

In early May 2020, the composer Lorne Balfe was confirmed to be returning to compose a score for the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible films, after scoring the sixth one.[64]