The Middle East premiere of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One was held at Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental in Abu Dhabi with stars Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff and Simon Pegg, as well as director Christopher McQuarrie, walking the red carpet.
The cast and the director interacted with fans and spoke about the seventh installment in the hit franchisee. While the stunts of the action thriller are the high point, Tom Cruise and the director admitted that they were not without challenges.
“Shooting post the pandemic while maintaining safety protocols was quite a challenge,” director Christopher McQuarrie told Filmfare Middle East. Meanwhile Cruise shared his excitement of shooting in the Middle East for the third time.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One was shot in locations across Abu Dhabi over 15 days in 2021. As well as filming inside the Midfield Terminal, the production team also shot on the roof of the 742,000sqm building, featuring the longest single standing arch in the world at 180m, and among the sweeping dunes of Liwa desert with support from Abu Dhabi Film Commission, part of the Creative Media Authority. The complexity of the shoot, which included building an Arabian village in the desert and multiple sets at the terminal, required a collaborative effort from multiple businesses and entities across Abu Dhabi, including twofour54 Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi Airports and Etihad Airways, the official airline partner of the film.
The first time the team shot in Dubai was for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), that saw Crusie scale down the Burj Khalifa. The second time around, they shot a sequence for Fallout shot in 2018.
Post the premiere, the cast of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One also visited iconic Abu Dhabi locations. Having returned to Abu Dhabi International Airport’s new Midfield Terminal, star and producer Tom Cruise visited Louvre Abu Dhabi, where he toured the iconic museum and met the team.
Meanwhile, co-stars Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, and Simon Pegg, as well as director Christopher McQuarrie, made their return to Midfield Terminal, one of the key locations in the movie, to see firsthand how the development of the terminal has advanced since they filmed there.
Pics Credit: Yasir Arafat