Tom Cruise is well known for doing his own daring stunts, and for his blockbuster movies’ ever-more thrilling locations. From shutting down the Marrakech Highway, to climing out of the Burj Khalifa and filming at the Haleakala Crater in Hawaii, Cruise’s films never skimp on the spectacular.
It’s not just these massive locations: his films have gone above and beyond in finding stand-out locations in other ways too. Last July, for example, it was announced that Mission: Impossible 8 would become one of the very few productions to film inside Westminster Abbey.
Then in September, Cruise filmed an advert in South Africa for CinemaCon in which he was standing up on a biplane, apparently unattached and holding onto it with just one hand, as it then swerved at a 90-degree angle. For Cruise, it seems, bigger is better - and there is no end to his ambitions.
There were even reports that that Cruise plans to film one of his next films on the International Space Station, making him the first actor ever to shoot a film in space.
Chairman of Universal Pictures, Donna Langley reportedly said in October: “I think Tom Cruise is taking us to space, he’s taking the world to space. That’s the plan. We have a great project in development with Tom… Taking a rocket up to the space station and shooting.”
While space might just be his craziest filming location yet, Cruise has spent his career travelling the world filming in some outrageously adventurous spots.
In anticipation of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, which will be released on July 10, here’s our round-up of some of Cruise’s other awe-inspiring filming locations.
Marrakech Highway - Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
In Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Cruise’s team reportedly shut down the entire Marrakech Highway (which runs from Marrakesh to Casablanca) for 14 days to film an epic car chase. The cars whizz past the famous Kasbah of the Udayas, through Rabat’s Old Medina, and through Casablanca’s Derb Sultan district (one of the city’s oldest and largest areas). Then the car then flips in front of the Mosque Hassan II - the second largest (functioning) mosque in Africa.
Cathedral of Seville - Knight and Day (2010)
In Knight and Day, a kidnapping is an opportunity for a scene change, and the audience is taken to Seville, where scenes were shot in the Cathedral of Seville. Just like with Westminster Abbey, filming there is a huge honour - the Cathedral is the fifth largest church in the world and is the world’s largest gothic church. Christopher Columbus also happens to be buried there.
Trafalgar Square - Edge of Tomorrow: Live Die Repeat (2014)
While Trafalgar Square might not seem overly exciting to Londoners, it’s still something for a production to shut the space down in its entirety. This is exactly what happened in 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow: Live Die Repeat, where Cruise’s character, Cage lands an RAF Puma in the square. Fountains were apparently even turned off for the shoot. Then, the film’s United Defense Force Headquarters was actually apparently filmed at the Ministry of Defence, which is located on Whitehall.
Haleakala Crater - Oblivion (2013)
In 2013 Oblivion’s team filmed at the Haleakala Crater in Hawaii, a shield volcano that is apparently so big it would swallow the entirety of the island of Manhattan (including the height of the skyscrapers). Apparently the film had a specialist VFX crew that filmed from the rim of the massive volcano (which is so big it makes up 75 per cent of the Island of Maui).
The crew also went to Iceland and filmed around the now famous Eyjafjallajökull - you might remember it as the volcano that disrupted air travel back in April 2010 when it started having a series of eruptions.
Burj Khalifa - Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
Trust Cruise to choose to scale the tallest building in the world (and make it happen). But climbing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is a whopping 829.8 metres tall, was a task even for the veteran actor. According to Screenrant, he had to wear a harness that was attached at certain points across the building. But this entailed drilling on the skyscraper’s floors, walls and incredibly, breaking as many as 26 windows. How the production team got permission and the necessary permits we do not know.
Chion-In Temple, Kyoto - The Last Samurai (2003)
In The Last Samurai, the 400-year-old Chion-In Temple in Kyoto is used instead of the Imperial Palace of Emperor Meiji (which is also located in Kyoto). But the Chion-In Temple is an extraordinary building in its own right. It dates back to the 1600s and is the current headquarters of the JÅdo-shÅ« (a branch of Pure Land Buddhism ).
Jagged peaks of Fisher Towers - Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
You might remember Cruise in Austin Powers in Goldmember for his glasses and his comical blue jacket, but do you also remember the extraordinary landscape of Moab in Utah? There was a fantastic helicopter scene, where the chopper flew through the peaks of Fisher Towers - a series of sandstone towers that have a gap of approximately 300m between them.
Mlada Boleslav Prison - Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
Admittedly, prisons feature in tonnes of films, but there’s something particularly haunting about Prague’s Mlada Boleslav Prison, where Cruise shot scenes for 2011’s Ghost Protocol. Cruise also shot scenes for his 1988 film Cocktail in Toronto’s The Don Jail, where a number of hangings took place before capital punishment was abolished in 1976.
Louvre Abu Dhabi - Mission: Impossible 7 – Dead Reckoning, Part One (2023)
We’re yet to see how much of the Louvre Abu Dhabi actually makes it into the next instalment of Mission Impossible, but the extraordinary building, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and completed in 2017 is a massive 24,000 square metres, has ‘leaves of light’ ceiling and is made up of futuristic-looking white slabs. What could be a better spot to film in?
