Hooded Tom Cruise In New MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCAL Image
In what has to be one of the worst timed pieces of publicity for a film in recent memory, a new image for the forthcoming Paramount Pictures action film Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol has been revealed this week.
In what has to be one of the worst timed pieces of publicity for a film in recent memory, a new image for the forthcoming Paramount Pictures action film Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol has been revealed this week. The still shows a hooded Tom Cruise walking towards the camera with a burning building in the background looking very much like he is taking part in the mindless riots that have plagued parts of the UK this week. In actual fact the photograph is taken from the opening scenes of the new film where Cruises Ethan Hunt and his IMF team are involved in a mission to Russia which results in an explosion at the Kremlin and according to the films Oscar winning director Brad Bird, it's sort of an event that kicks everything into motion." Which is fine but the image doesn't look very Mission: Impossible-ish; Giving an interview to Yahoo Movies, Bird whose previous movies have all been of the animated variety, The Iron Giant, Pixars The Incredibles and Ratatouille, seems to have been given free reign to put his own stamp on the Mission: Impossible franchise much like the directors involved in the previous installments, Brian De Palma, John Woo and J.J. Abrams. Just as these are Tom Cruise showcases, they are also director ones too;
I kind of had some different things in mind for it and was given the opportunity to do many of them. So I'm interested to seeing the audience response to the surprise of some of the things in the movie.
In making the transition from animated films to live action, Bird does not seem fazed that the film is a $140,000,000 blockbuster with high expectations and an all-star cast. In fact his background in animation has proved useful when pre-visualizing action sequences with extensive use of storyboards. When asked about the differences between the two mediums, Bird states;
They're both hard, and they're still story-oriented with characters and shot composition and rhythm and color and editing, and it's all film. They're just hard in different ways. The medium of film itself is what interests me.
The film promises to be an ensemble piece this time around with Cruise joined by series regular Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg reprising his role of Benji Dunn from the third film along with newcomers to the team Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker), Paula Patton (Déjà vu) and Josh Holloway (Lost). Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol is the fourth installment of the popular franchise based on the sixties TV series and will be released in the UK on 26th December 2011.