Tom Cruise performed the scene in which Ethan Hunt climbs alone up the outside of the Burj Khalifa tower without using a stunt double. The Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest building at 2,722 feet, or 829.8 meters. Cruise was dangling about 1,700 feet, or 518 meters, up the outside of the tower.
Director Brad Bird specifically wanted every device in the film to break or malfunction.
During production, Tom Cruise performed most of the stunts himself, including the skyscraper scenes, to show the audience that it was actually him. This would allow director Brad Bird to have more freedom with camera angles and not have to hide the fact that the person doing the stunt was a double.
According to Tom Cruise, he was happy when he heard they were using a subtitle instead of a number in the film's title, as in the previous three films. Because Cruise views each film as a standalone entry in the Mission: Impossible series, he was not a fan of some of the films that end with sequels.
The elaborate perspective-compensating moving screen used to hide someone behind it in the Moscow Kremlin archives scene was similarly used in the television series Mission: Impossible (1966), season 4, episode 16, titled The Falcon: Part 3 (1970).
The Bruce Springsteen shirt Ethan wears while leaving the Kremlin was costume designer Michael Kaplan's personal T-shirt. The production contacted Springsteen's representatives repeatedly to allow the shirt to appear in the film, but for some reason they kept refusing. Tom Cruise, who used to be Springsteen's neighbor, was very confused when he heard this. He immediately took out his phone, called Springsteen, and was told that of course he could show the shirt.
The removed windows of the Burj Khalifa were carefully broken with hammers by two workers on a window-washing platform on the outside of the building.
Jeremy Renner's character Brandt was created specifically to take over from Tom Cruise's character Ethan Hunt in case Cruise decided to leave the series.
Jeremy Renner stated that working with Tom Cruise was a dream come true, because he had always idolized Tom Cruise as an actor. Renner mentioned that Cruise is a great actor but an even better man.
Andreas Wisniewski hands Ethan a black mask similar to the one used to meet the arms dealer who also appeared in Mission: Impossible (1996), and gives him the same style of mask as he is taken to meet Max, an arms dealer.
Brad Bird's first live-action directing effort.
Typically, mission objectives end with the notification, "This message will self destruct in 5 seconds." After Ethan receives his objective directly from the Secretary, 5 seconds later the car is attacked and the Secretary is killed.
Brandt's fan-favorite line, "Next time, I get to seduce the rich guy," was written by none other than the future writer/director of the rest of the series; Christopher McQuarrie, who achieved great success without being involved in the film's re-editing. He admitted that when he wrote this line, he thought, "there was no way it would end up in the film."
Dermot Mulroney plays cello in this film's music orchestra. Mulroney, better known as an actor (Longtime Companion (1989), My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), About Schmidt (2002), etc.), is also a classical cellist who occasionally plays in recording sessions for film scores.
FRANCHISE TRADEMARK (jump and hang): Jeremy Renner performs the signature jump-and-hang-in-midair move that Tom Cruise did in Mission: Impossible (1996).
Brad Bird says his only offer for the film came from a text message from the previous film's director/producer, J. J. Abrams, that simply read, "Mission?"
At the end of the film, Ethan receives instructions for his next mission involving a terrorist organization called "The Syndicate." This is a nod to the original Mission: Impossible (1966) television series, in which The Syndicate was a Mafia-like crime empire used as the enemy for many of the IMF's local missions. This also serves as a setup for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015).
The film grossed 693 million dollars worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in the series. It also surpassed War of the Worlds (2005) to become Tom Cruise's highest-grossing film as of 2012.
The high-tech car Ethan Hunt drives toward the end of the film is the Vision Efficient Dynamics concept car. This is a real prototype of the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid, which went into production in late 2013. The concept car is powered by a 1.5-liter three-cylinder turbocharged gasoline engine and two electric motors.
Ethan survives a 30-meter vertical fall in a car by deploying the airbags. Falling from this height means the car would be moving at slightly less than 55 miles per hour at the moment of impact.
Jeremy Renner was offered the role of Jackson Lamb in Super 8 (2011) (which ultimately went to Kyle Chandler), but J. J. Abrams said that he, Tom Cruise and Brad Bird were interested in him. When he accepted the role, Renner was only given information about the film and a character outline, since there was no script at that point.
Ethan uses the call sign "Alpha 113," and "A113" appears on Hanaway's bell. A113 is a running joke and Easter egg frequently seen in films produced by Pixar, as well as in films created by graduates of the California Institute of the Arts, named after one of the room numbers of the character animation BFA program. Director Brad Bird is both a CalArts graduate and a Pixar film director, and he has used the "A113" reference in all of his feature films as well as his television work.
(About seventeen minutes later) The code Ethan uses at the payphone to receive his final mission is Tom Cruise's birthday, 07362.
The sandstorm scene was shot on flat Super 35 mm rather than IMAX, because the flying sand, due to motion blur, would be invisible on film (even in IMAX) and would appear only as a red haze. The enlarged grain of 35 mm film provided the "sand" when blown up to IMAX.
While Ethan is in the hospital after the Kremlin explosion, he reads the lips of two police officers talking outside his room. This continues the element from Mission: Impossible III (2006) that Ethan, as a highly trained spy, knows how to read lips. Tom Cruise came up with that idea for that film.
Skydance Media CEO David Ellison said: "Funny but true story; it was the day we were rehearsing the Burj Khalifa, it was the whole stunt team, Tom was next to the building, me, [director] Brad Bird and [producer] Bryan Burk, and Tom was padded up, had a helmet on, and we had rehearsed for months in these hangars and sound stages, and Tom kicked the building and, as he described it himself, we hit head-on magnificently, and me, Burk and Brad said 'this is a really bad idea.' While all of us were arguing among ourselves that we were the biggest idiots known to humanity for getting ourselves into this situation, Tom came back to the same point with the stunt team and on the second rehearsal we nailed it perfectly, and we all looked at each other and said 'this is why he's Tom Cruise.' We shot it the next day. We shot it twice and it was magnificent."
Additional shots were filmed with Benji (Simon Pegg) and the Kremlin guard; the latter was approaching the rear projection screen so dangerously that he nearly discovered the trick. Tom Cruise had insisted on filming these because he feared they would not get maximum tension from the scene. In the end, Brad Bird had the shots deleted because it seemed too impossible for the guard to get that close to the screen without noticing.
For a significant portion of the film's script and shooting, Julia was actually dead and gone. Christopher McQuarrie, the future writer/director of the rest of the franchise, was brought on to develop the script and ultimately decided to let his name not appear in the film. One of the many things he changed was that Julia was in hiding and that he made Brandt the person responsible for protecting her. Before that, Brandt had a similar backstory in which he lost two agents and resigned from his analyst position, but it was unrelated to Ethan's story and it felt like Brandt was in his own film. Had this change not happened, the entirety of Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) would probably have been different, since it focuses on the villain who wants to kill Julia in order to destroy Ethan's world.
This is the first installment in the series in which none of the villains is an IMF agent or a former one.
Skydance Media CEO David Ellison said that the film's original insurer would not allow Tom Cruise to do the stunt on the Burj Khalifa, so Cruise ordered them fired and another insurer found.
Prop Master Kris Peck said that the prop that gave him and his team the most difficult moments during production was the goggles Tom Cruise wore during the Burj Khalifa climb and the sandstorm scene. The goggles were custom-made, it took some time to reach that decision, and Peck had to meticulously modify them over several days so that not even the tiniest grain of sand could get inside during the sandstorm chase.
While only Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames appear in all six Mission: Impossible films, Simon Pegg and Michelle Monaghan are the only actors (aside from Cruise and Rhames) to reprise their roles from the previous third film, Mission: Impossible III (2006). Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner were actually going to reprise their roles in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015), and Pegg continued the role of Benji in the sixth film as well.
The only film in the entire series in which Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) is not part of Ethan's mission. In the end, he appears where he meets Ethan at a bar. He reunites with Benji (Simon Pegg) and, before leaving, meets Brandt (Jeremy Renner) and Carter (Paula Patton) and tells Ethan that he will see him on the next mission. He would be part of the team again in the next three installments.
When Brad Bird agreed to direct the film, he asked J. J. Abrams. Abrams was reluctant to show him the script and said Bird would have too much freedom while shooting the scenes. After Bird finally received a genuine offer from Abrams for the script, the producer admitted that they had several drafts but nothing definitive at that point, and that Bird should use the opportunity to contribute as much as he wanted. According to Bird, the script underwent major changes even after production began. For example, in the scene in the van following Ethan's prison escape, the team was initially unaware of the situation and unsure how to proceed; Bird blamed the fact that even he did not have an overview of the plot. This was later reshot once the direction of the plot became clear. The original scene can be seen as a deleted scene on the Blu-Ray release.
Twenty-five minutes of the film were shot in IMAX 70mm.
In India, the intense chase scene through the city center at night, as well as the close-up scene in which Ethan (Tom Cruise) and his "still-alive" wife make eye contact, were shot in Vancouver, British Columbia. The former near the convention center in the city center, the latter at "Granville Market." The scene in Moscow where Ethan is briefed about his mission and team was also shot in Vancouver.
(At twenty-three minutes) The shot immediately after Benji looks at the Russian guard and says that "Yegorov" belongs to Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt) and Simon Pegg (Benji) walking down the corridor. For a brief moment you see Michael Nyqvist (Hendricks) walking a few meters ahead of them, apparently waiting for them and most likely picking up their radio frequencies. His plan depended on IMF infiltrating the Kremlin during the explosion, which explained how he was able to detect their communication frequencies.
The only film in the series in which the opening title sequence, featuring the burning of a fuse and the "Mission: Impossible" theme, is actually part of the opening sequence. In all the other films from Mission: Impossible (1996) to Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015), the opening title sequence is used as a transition between two different scenes or events. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) is the only film in which Paula Patton (Carter) lights the fuse, making the opening title sequence part of the action.
(At about one hour and fifty-five minutes) The building the warhead grazes is San Francisco's signature skyscraper, the Transamerica Pyramid. The windowless cap at the top is covered with aluminum panels and is purely decorative, containing no office space.
The Indian Palace scene was shot at Zabeel Saray Palm Jumeirah (Dubai). During the three-day shoot, the hotel was still in its pre-opening phase.
The Burj Khalifa Hotel mentioned in the film is the Armani Hotel Dubai, the first hotel designed and developed by Giorgio Armani.
The rock that Ethan repeatedly tosses back and forth to himself in the opening sequence was conceived during shooting and, according to the prop master, was an encouragement for what Tom Cruise wanted to do; they shot all the scenes with the rock without it being written in any version of the script.
The only "Mission: Impossible" film that does not feature any hero wearing a full mask. Ethan does a bit of makeup in the Kremlin scene, and later in the film the villain wears a full mask.
Christopher McQuarrie, writer and director of installments 5-8 of the series, made significant rewrites, including changing who kills the villain at the end of the film from Jeremy Renner's character William Brandt to Simon Pegg's character Benji Dunn. He did this by pitching the father-son bond between Ethan and Benji to Paramount Pictures executives.
The indoor water fountains at the Indian Palace use special laminar flow nozzles to provide turbulence-free water streams. Special valves are used to "cut" the water into separate sections. Similar fountain technology is used at the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Las Vegas.
One of the working titles of the fourth film in the series was actually Rogue Nation, which was used for the next film.
One of the film's milestones is that it presents the first Russian text written without a single grammatical error in an American film (the Russian text shown on screen at the beginning of the film).
Initially, with J. J. Abrams set to direct, it was targeted for release in mid-May 2011. However, pre-production delays and rewrites of the script delayed the film; at the same time, Abrams was busy working on Super 8 (2011), which caused him to step down from directing but continue in his producing duties.
The opening scene originally consisted of a young Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) preparing the speech about nuclear endgames, which would later be seen being delivered to Congress in Ethan's mission report. However, the scene did not work as intended and was canceled in favor of a more action-oriented opening.
(At about one hour and twenty-three minutes) Ethan Hunt arranges a meeting by phone with a Russian arms dealer, using his Dunhill lighter as a signal. This may be a hint that the meeting is not what it initially appears to be, just as Jim Phelps uses a Dunhill lighter in Mission: Impossible (1996). In fact, after the climax, the audience learns that Hunt wanted the arms dealer to inform on him to the Russians so that they would believe the real conspiracy.
The offer returned to Vanessa Redgrave to reprise her character Max from the first film. According to costume designer Michael Kaplan, he never designed a costume for her because she "said no immediately."
(About one hour and twenty-eight minutes in) In the scene where Ethan is taken to see the Russian arms dealer by the man he helped escape from the Russian prison, the name "Yu-ri" is clearly stamped in Korean alphabet letters on the wooden crates in the background. Yuri (after Yuri Gorbachev) is a name frequently used in fictional and real-life spy books and films to refer to Russian and/or Soviet spies or the former K.G.B. In general.
As seen in the final shot of the second theatrical trailer, a large missile flies over San Francisco and apparently heads toward the Emeryville area, where Pixar headquarters is located.
Ruben Fleischer and Edgar Wright (Simon Pegg's friend) were also considered for the directing job. Wright stepped back because he was in post-production on Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010). Brad Bird was chosen because of his work on The Incredibles (2004), which also includes similar espionage themes. The film's composer, Michael Giacchino, had also previously worked with Bird on that film and on Ratatouille (2007).
Body count: forty-two.
(About twenty-one minutes in) Agent Carter releases a red balloon with a camera attached to its knot to drop a device onto the outer walls of the Kremlin Palace. Since the plot concerns Russian nuclear weapons, this is a nod to the 80s German pop song "99 Luftballons," in which a string of red balloons prompts a trigger-happy general to launch several nuclear bombs and provoke World War III.
This is the first film in the series to be released in IMAX.
Due to the 70 mm IMAX engagement, the film played without any previews except for the six-minute prologue of The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
It grossed 13 million dollars in its opening weekend in 425 theaters, breaking the record for the highest-grossing opening weekend in fewer than 600 theaters (previously held by Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)).
Anthony Mackie, Christopher Egan, Kevin Zegers, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy were considered to play Brandt.
Originally, the film's opening was a very elaborate snow chase. Costume Designer Michael Kaplan has a photo of Paula Patton taken while doing a costume rehearsal for this sequence, but that is all that remains of the idea.
The ending scene where Ethan sees Julia was shot at the Granville Island Public Market in Vancouver, BC. The scene in the Mumbai parking garage was shot at the Convention Centre in downtown Vancouver.
Paula Patton's character Carter in this film is probably a tribute to Barbara Bain, who played Cinnamon Carter in the television series.
While escaping from the hospital, Ethan Hunt lands on the roof of a van and causes the driver to jump the curb. When the driver rushes out to curse at Ethan, he shouts "Yo-moyo!" as a Russian exclamation of surprise, with no literal English translation, which is somewhat rude behavior. This is the same exclamation used by Chekov in J. J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009). Abrams is a co-producer of this film.
Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner and Josh Holloway are left-handed.
Michael Giacchino is the first composer to score more than one film in the series.
The first Mission: Impossible film that Paula Wagner would not co-produce.
In Dubai, while the team prepares for the mission, Tom Cruise briefly wears a pair of glasses seen on the train. The same glasses are also used while scaling the hotel, and they are actually Oakley Split Jackets, modified, of course. They have clear frames with special wind gaskets and an elastic strap that you can get on standard models. Unfortunately, the glasses featured in the film are one of a kind and not available to the public.
The producers initially wanted Gene Hackman to play the role of the IMF Secretary, so much so that when they did the pre-visualization of the scene where the Secretary's car falls off the bridge, a figure resembling Hackman was used for the character.
The IMF team makes use of Apple products such as multiple iPhones, iPads and MacBook Airs. Producer J. J. Abrams is a strong supporter of Apple products.
Kristin Kreuk and Lauren German were considered to play Jane Carter.
The cars visible in the moving camera shot of the valet parking area in Mumbai, in counterclockwise order starting from the lower left: Ferrari Enzo, Mercedes Benz SL 65 AMG Black Series, Bugatti Veyron 16.4, Ferrari F430, Aston Martin Vantage, Aston Martin DB9, BMW M6 and three white Rolls Royce Phantoms.
Tom Cruise bouncing the object off the cell wall is an obvious homage to Steve McQueen bouncing a baseball off the cell wall in The Great Escape (1963).
(About fourteen minutes in) The class ring Trevor Hanaway (Josh Holloway) uses to calm the courier is a Jostens Magnum class ring with a sapphire stone.
After the Kremlin explodes, Ethan is taken to the hospital and eventually removes a paper clip from a hospital map to pick the handcuffs he is in. After he escapes, Anatoly examines the bed Ethan was in, and a brief shot shows the paper clip bent into the keyhole of one of the handcuffs. This is accurate to real life. Paper clips can actually be used to bypass handcuff locks.
It is Jeremy Renner's highest-grossing film outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
(About forty-four minutes in) While Russian investigators examine the files of two prisoners who escaped from the prison on the day the Kremlin was bombed, it is revealed that Ethan Hunt's false identity is Sergei Ivanov. In real life, Sergei Ivanov is a senior Russian official and statesman.
With this film, the Mission: Impossible series' global box office gross surpassed 2 billion dollars.
The number 47 appears or is mentioned many times, notably as the number of the train car that Ethan and Brandt chase after and of the pier where the team gathers after the mission. The frequent inclusion of the number 47 is a common occurrence in science fiction films and television, especially in the numerous Star Trek series. Simon Pegg appears in the Star Trek (2009) film series.
Although Mission: Impossible III (2006) is the only film in the series that clearly breaks the fourth wall, there is a moment in this film that comes very close to it. After Ethan interfaces with the server, there is a shot while he is running along the side of the Burj Khalifa in which the camera is mounted on the window and looks at him. When Tom Cruise runs down the wall and reaches the spot where the camera is, he clearly jumps over it and keeps running.
In the Italian version of the film, Ethan introduces Luther to the rest of the group as Stickler instead of Stickell.
(At about one hour and twenty-five minutes) The pipe a man is seen smoking on the dock is a tobacco mixture popular in the United Arab Emirates called "Medwakh" or "Dokha".
In the Indian palace scene, Ethan's code name is Jupiter. In Roman mythology, Jupiter represents the Greek god Zeus, king of the gods. Jane uses the code name Venus, which represents the Greek goddess Aphrodite in Roman mythology.
In the opening scene, Josh Holloway walks toward Léa Seydoux in an alley, but is shot by her. This strongly recalls a scene in The Sting (1973) in which Robert Redford's character walks toward a female assassin in an alley without realizing she is about to shoot him. In The Sting, however, the assassin is killed before she can shoot Redford.
It is Brad Bird's only film rated PG-13 by the MPAA. All his other films were rated G or PG.
The idea that Ethan Hunt would receive instructions about his mission by telephone came from the Mission: Impossible (1966) episode in which Jim Phelps also receives his mission instructions by telephone.
Similarly, the mission instructions scene in A Game of Chess (1968) takes place in a public telephone booth, as in this film.
The film made the shortlist for the Best Visual Effects Oscar but was not nominated.
Josh Holloway and Keith Dallas appeared in a television series called INTELLIGENCE, but the two series merely share the same title and are in no way connected.
It is the first Mission: Impossible film to carry Paramount Pictures' current logo.
It is the only Mission: Impossible film not released in the summer months.
The second Mission: Impossible film was to be released in the same year as a Fast & Furious film; this film and Fast Five (2011) were released in 2011. This had previously happened in 2006 with Mission: Impossible III (2006) and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006). The trend would later continue in 2015 with Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) and Furious 7 (2015), and in 2023 with Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) and Fast X (2023).
The film's 145 million dollar budget was recouped in just 19 days. Despite its disappointing 12.8 million dollar opening, it went on to earn a notable 209.4 million dollars domestically. It also performed very well internationally, grossing 694.7 million dollars (both domestic and international), placing fifth in the 2011 ticket revenue rankings, while Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) remained in the lead with 1,341.5 million dollars.