Trivia / Mission: Impossible II

• Actor-Shared Background: John Polson is Australian like his character Billy Baird.
• B-Team Sequel: Tom Cruise asked Brian De Palma to return as director, but he declined.
• Creative Differences: Andrew Lesnie was the film's original cinematographer. He left less than a month into shooting, due to "stylistic differences" with John Woo.
• Doing It for the Art: Because of his huge back-end deals, Tom Cruise was forced to pay for the production overruns out of his own pocket.
• Executive Meddling: Allegedly, John Woo butted heads with Tom Cruise over Woo's cut of the movie. Once editing started, Cruise, under order from Paramount executives, locked Woo out from the offices, again to keep him from protesting the studio's treatment of the film. He suffered almost the exact same treatment earlier with Hard Target.
• Fake Nationality: The South African Hugh Stamp is played by the Australian Richard Roxburgh. His nationality is never explicitly stated in the movie, though, and while Hugh does have an accent, the film is largely set in Australia anyway, and most audiences are unlikely to notice (unless they are South African or Australian, of course).
• Fake Russian: Rade Šerbedžija as Dr. Markovitch.
• Hostility on the Set: Thandiwe Newton revealed in a 2020 interview with Vulture that she had problems with Tom Cruise during filming of a particular scene set in a balcony, calling her experience a "nightmare".
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • The theatrical trailer shows three extended scenes which are not in the movie: Ethan saying "Welcome to Australia, mate" to Luther when they first meet, extra line of dialogue by Swanbeck in the ending where he says to Ethan "Well, Mr. Hunt. I don't quite know where to begin," and Ethan charging at Sean and two of them falling off the cliff. Originally, this scene happened right after they crash their bikes and before their fight on the beach. Making-of documentary where stunts from the movie are discussed also shows some behind-the-scenes footage from filming of this scene and couple shots from it; motorbike flying towards camera which is buried in the ground, Ethan and Sean lying on ground after crashing into each other when the other crashed motorbike explodes, and Ethan running towards Sean.
  • Another line from Swanbeck from the trailers - "Well, Mr. Hunter, the mother of all nightmares is on the loose".
• No Stunt Double: Tom Cruise performed about 95% of his own stunts, most famously the scene where a knife is stopped less than an inch from Ethan's eye.
• The Other Darrin: In the European French dub, Yvan Attal replaced Patrick Poivey as Ethan.
• Reality Subtext: Nyah not returning for the third film is probably best explained by this article which reveals that Thandiwe Newton didn't enjoy working with Tom Cruise and probably wasn't keen on repeating the experience.
• Troubled Production: Filming itself went relatively smoothly (though the filming period overran significantly, which cost Dougray Scott the role of Wolverine in X-Men, while Cruise was allegedly constantly stressed out over the high expectations to make the film good, according to a 2020 interview with Thandie Newton). Where the film ran into friction was the post-production process — John Woo turned in a cut of the film that was nearly three-and-a-half hours long and would have garnered an R-rating, leading to friction with Paramount executives. (There are allegations that Cruise, on orders from Paramount, personally locked Woo out of the editing room.) Stuart Baird performed uncredited work re-editing the film, getting it down to a much more manageable length.
• Uncredited Role:
  • Anthony Hopkins makes an unbilled appearance as Ethan's boss (for this film, anyway).
  • Stuart Baird did uncredited re-editing work on this film and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider for Paramount in order to get the job of directing Star Trek: Nemesis.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Oliver Stone was the first director attached to this film in the period after the first film's release. A treatment was written under his supervision but was rejected. Stone eventually backed out due to scheduling conflicts resulting from Tom Cruise's prolonged stint on Eyes Wide Shut.
  • The part of Mission Commander Swanbeck was originally offered to Ian McKellen. He was not able to accept the role, due to a prior theatre engagement in London, and the part eventually went to Anthony Hopkins.
  • The first cut of the film clocked in at three and a half hours. The studio balked at this length and told John Woo that the final length could not exceed two hours. This would explain why there are so many plot holes and continuity errors in the theatrical cut.
  • William Goldman wrote a script that wasn't used.
  • The opening plane crash was originally meant to cut right into the fuse being lit followed by the same credits sequence as the first film. Cruise didn't find that exciting enough, so he suggested that they cut to him rock-climbing instead.
  • The segment in Spain could have taken place in Italy, Russia or and Malaysia.
  • The script originally featured Ethan and Nyah hashing out their new relationship via a conversation in a room, but Woo thought that was too boring and opted instead for a phone call during a car chase.

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