10,000 days old as of today, Mission Impossible is still one of the most influential spy movies in modern cinema!

I recently re-watched the Mission Impossible movies and while not my personal favorite out of the bunch, the original stood out to me. It felt like it completely focused on the spy/thriller aspects over the action, something that wasn't replicated in alter movies. This led me to a rabbit hole of reading about the impact & legacy of the 1996 movie.

In celebration of it turning 10,000 days old today, I thought I'll share some of the things that stood out to me about the behind-the-scenes of the movie that launched one of the most influential spy/action movie franchises to date.

• Cruise was fan of the show since he was young which made him all the more invested in the movie, and led him to convince Paramount to put up a $70 million budget, despite that Paramount initially declined spending more than $40-$50 million.
  • In the end the film was bought in on time and under budget, at $62 million.
• Many people know that Cruise did his own stunts, but that was (and still is) difficult as most studios refuse to underwrite the insurance on A-list Hollywood stars. It was actually in parts thanks to Cruise being a producer with his production company calling the shots, that he found himself with more freedom to perform his own stunts, something that carried over to all the later MI movies.

• This the only movie in the franchise where Tom Cruise's character (Ethan Hunt) doesn't fire a single gun. Even more interesting is that it's the only one to have absolutely no gunfights or shoot-outs.

  • This IMO was one of the main factors making it feel like a spy movie first and an action movie second.

• Ving Rhames was cast as Luther because the producers felt that he was the opposite of what a hacker normally looks like.

• It became the first film to be released in over 3,000 theaters in North America

• The legendary Mission Impossible theme was written in 1967 for the original tv series when Cruise was only 4 years old and took Lalo Schifrin (the composer) a mere 3 minutes to write it.

  • It appeared in a number of TV shows and films over the years with some of my favorites being The Simpsons, Wayne's World, Shrek 2 and Paddington.

The most iconic scene in the movie and potentially in the whole franchise is the heist/vault scene and to do it justice would require its own separate post. Here's a great article from slashfilm for those interested in the behind the scenes, production and legacy of it.

Critically it wasn't as universally beloved as some of its later sequels. However, it ultimately became the 1st film of a series that has somehow managed to continually improve itself from movie to movie (perhaps aside from the 2nd) and has gone down in history as one of the best action franchises to date.

P.S for those looking for a detailed retrospective of the whole Mission Impossible franchise I highly recommend Prime Theater's video on Youtube, it is excellent and well-worth a watch.

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