Making ‘Mission’ Possible
Tom Cruise was so determined to get J.J. Abrams to direct the third installment of his “Mission: Impossible” franchise that he persuaded Paramount Pictures to put the project on hold for a year.
He also helped persuade Steven Spielberg to move up production on “War of the Worlds” and postpone work on “Munich” to accommodate Abrams’ schedule.
Once he finally stepped behind the cameras, Abrams found himself wondering how a neophyte filmmaker who had come to fame on the small screen, creating the influential television hits “Lost” and “Alias,” had ended up on the set of a $165-million Tom Cruise movie.
“There were moments of lucidity where I would realize, ‘What in the name of God am I doing?’ ” Abrams says. “And then I would just get distracted by the issue at hand, run off and blow something up.”
The opening entry in this year’s expanded summer movie season, “Mission: Impossible III,” which opens today, will naturally be seen as an audience referendum on Cruise – who is coming off both his biggest career hit (“War of the Worlds”) and an equally outsized barrage of problematic publicity.
Paramount Pictures is looking to the Abrams-Cruise partnership to break its nearly yearlong box-office slump and perhaps help reverse a broader box-office malaise.
Few doubt that the movie will be a success with the young men who flock to action titles. But some Paramount executives are privately worried that Cruise’s unpredictable off-screen exploits – feuding with Brooke Shields over drug treatment for post-partum depression, and his overhyped relationship with Katie Holmes – might have hurt his appeal with women.
Some people associated with the film even hoped Cruise would play the part of the dedicated dad and stay home with his and Holmes’ newborn daughter rather than travel overseas for the film’s several premieres. (He ultimately attended premieres in Rome, London and Paris, traveling with his two older children.)
Abrams, who has attracted millions of female viewers to his TV series, including “Felicity,” says he’s aware of the marketing challenges, but Paramount “has it covered.”
Regardless of the sequel’s ultimate performance, one thing is certain: Abrams, unlike some who preceded him on the “Mission: Impossible” films, was able to find common creative ground with Cruise.
That was crucial, because Abrams wasn’t just directing Cruise, he was working for him. The actor, along with partner Paula Wagner, produces the “Mission: Impossible” movies.
“So many people I know warned me not to do this movie, just for that reason,” Abrams says. “Not because of Tom in particular. Just the notion of a star producer – they thought I was an idiot.
“But I felt like I could trust him. He said, ‘I want this to be your ‘Mission: Impossible.’ I’m the actor. You’re the director.’ “
Abrams, 39, grew up loving the original TV show, which ran from 1966 to 1973. But when he first met Cruise, he had yet to put a foot of film through a feature film camera, and “Lost” had yet to become a premiere, let alone a sensation.
Cruise and Spielberg previously had wanted Abrams, whose screenplay credits include “Regarding Henry,” “Forever Young” and “Armageddon,” to rewrite “War of the Worlds.” But Abrams wasn’t available to work on that movie as he was in the middle of the “Lost” pilot.
When they finally met, Cruise and Abrams hit it off. Then Cruise watched the first two seasons of “Alias,” which, Abrams explains, was partially inspired by the “Mission: Impossible” TV show.
Cruise apparently liked what he saw.
“He invited me and my wife to a concert one night, and I invited him to my birthday party,” Abrams says. “He came, hung out and was one of the last to leave. It was like – ‘How the hell is Tom Cruise at our house?’ “
Around that time, Abrams was angling to direct “Superman Returns,” having written a script about the superhero for Warner Bros. But Warners chose Bryan Singer (“X-Men”) instead.
Three weeks later, original director Joe Carnahan (“Narc”) was out at “Mission Impossible: III” – at a cost of $30 million in sunk costs by Paramount – and Abrams was in.
“I met with Tom and Paula, and Tom gave me that ‘Risky Business’ smile and said, ‘Do you want to do it?’ ” Abrams recalls. “And I said, ‘Yeah, I want to do it. But what is it? What’s the story? I haven’t read the script.’ “
Then Abrams took a look at the script, which had undergone countless revisions. “I felt my heart sink,” he says.
“I’m just not the guy to make that movie,” Abrams says he told Cruise. “And he said, ‘What would you want to do?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know exactly, but I know I want to do a much more personal story, something more character-based than mission-based.’
“I thought he would say, ‘Well, we have to shoot in two months. Next time, we’ll do something.’ But he said, ‘Let’s do that version.’ “
Where the first two “Mission: Impossible” movies (directed by Brian De Palma and John Woo, respectively) were full of gadgets and complex, sometimes hard-to-follow narratives, Abrams and “Alias” writing collaborators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci wanted the third movie to be more about Hunt.
“Our question was, ‘What would the “Jerry Maguire” version of Ethan Hunt look like?’ ” Kurtzman says.
Adds Orci: “Who is he today? Who is he as a married man?”
In the new film, Hunt is engaged to be wed and trying to cut back on secret agent gigs. He reluctantly returns to help rescue a former spy student (Keri Russell, who starred in “Felicity”).
Hunt then spearheads a job inside the Vatican to kidnap Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a villain involved with a mysterious weapon called the rabbit’s foot.
What really gets him going, though, is when his fiancee (Michelle Monaghan) is taken hostage.
The exact risk of Davian’s doomsday device isn’t all that clear, and intentionally so. Hunt isn’t out to save the world from some unspeakable weapon; he’s out to save his girl.