Trivia / Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

• Acting for Two: Vanessa Kirby played both White Widow and Grace disguised as White Widow with Latex Perfection.
• Actor-Inspired Element: Pom Klementieff confirmed that her character's white makeup and black teardrop design was her idea.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: One reason why Hayley Atwell hasn't played in more blockbuster roles outside of Peggy Carter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that she's been dissatisfied with many of such roles that were proposed to her over the years. That apparently changed with the role of Grace here, which she adores.
• Dueling Works: Came out one month before Netflix's Heart of Stone, another high octane globetrotting spy/action thriller centered around an elite secret agent, both produced by Skydance Media, amusingly enough. Both films have one or two sequences in Italy, a sequence in a desert, the protagonist paragliding at one point and a plot concerning a race for a MacGuffin giving access to an Artificial Intelligence that can hack into anything on Earth and calculate outcomes with Ludicrous Precision.
• Fake American: Brits Cary Elwes, Indira Varma and Mark Gatiss all play Americans.
• Flip-Flop of God: When asked whether Ethan and Ilsa had become a couple, Rebecca Ferguson revealed that she didn't know and wasn't really interested in depicting a romance between them, though that their relationship could be interpreted as either a romantic or a platonic one.
• In Memoriam: The credits feature a dedication to Sumner Redstone, the former chairman of Viacom, CBS and ViacomCBS (Paramount's parent companies) who passed away in 2020.
• Meme Acknowledgement:
  • The fanbase's amusement over Tom Cruise's running in the film series (and, by extension, his tendency to have at least one scene in nearly every modern film he stars in where's he's running at breakneck pace) was highlighted by Paramount Pictures themselves in a promo video for this film's release, released to celebrate Cruise's birthday, which functions as both a showcase of Ethan's running throughout the series and a promo for Dead Reckoning itself.
  • For anyone who ever thought/dreamed of an International Monetary Fund joke, there's one in the films now.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Pom Klementieff dubbed herself in French.
• No Stunt Double: As with previous M:I films, Tom Cruise performed many death-defying stunts himself, with the iconic BASE jump being shot to show his wind-whipped face as much as possible.
• The Other Marty: During the turnaround as the COVID-19 Pandemic interrupted the filming, Nicholas Hoult had to drop out and Esai Morales took over his role as Gabriel.
• Post-Release Retitle: Since the sequel will not be titled Dead Reckoning Part Two anymore, Paramount released this film as simply Dead Reckoning on home video.
• Release Date Change:
  • Part One was originally set for release on July 23, 2021, but was delayed to November 19, 2021 and then to May 27, 2022 and then to September 30, 2022 before changing to July 12, 2023 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Its May 27 release date was then given to Top Gun: Maverick.
  • Part Two (which isn't titled as such anymore) was scheduled was previously set for release on August 5, 2022, then was delayed to November 4, 2022, then to July 7, 2023, June 28, 2024, and then to the current date, May 23, 2025 (the latter due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike).
• Role Reprise: Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge. He was last seen on-screen in Mission: Impossible (the first film) way back in 1996, though he subsequently lent voice work to the Mission: Impossible level pack for LEGO Dimensions in 2016.
• Troubled Production:
  • The COVID-19 Pandemic caused major delays in the production several times in a row. It got so bad that Tom Cruise went on a rant against crew members who didn't comply with pandemic time production guidelines, insisting that it was also about ensuring the livelihood of everyone involved. As producer, it was important to Cruise that the production went as smoothly as possible, as a successful shoot could show other studios they could film even under protocols (Cruise even rented an entire cruise liner — no pun intended — for the crew to quarantine in relative comfort). That rant was recorded and leaked in mid-December 2020. Even after the rant, though, production still wound up pausing due to additional positive COVID tests in the ensuing months.
  • The production was looking for a train bridge that would be scheduled for destruction to blow it up onscreen. They found one in Poland... until it turned out it had historical value after all, there was a misunderstanding about it being destined to be destroyed as well as strong opposition to the idea from the locals. So they headed back to the US and built one from scratch.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The inital plan was to film Part One and Part Two back-to-back. The strain on production due to the COVID-19 Pandemic cancelled those plans, with the filming for Part Two instead beginning shortly after production finished up on Part One.
  • Angela Bassett was originally intended to reprise her role from Fallout, but her appearance was ultimately removed due to pandemic-related filming complications. She is still referenced in the final film, however — during an early sequence in Dehlinger's office, a portrait of her can be seen hanging on the wall behind him in several shots during the group meeting.
  • Nicholas Hoult was originally supposed to be the villain of the movie until he was replaced with Esai Morales due to a scheduling conflict with The Great caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the production delay.
  • Christopher McQuarrie initially floated the idea of Digitally Deaging Tom Cruise for the opening sequence, with a similarly deaged Julia Roberts as Marie, but eventually scrapped it because he was focusing on the visual effects more than the story and realizing how expensive the scene would become. However, he has also said he may revisit the concept.

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