Tom Cruise’s latest thrill-filled spy drama “Mission Impossible: Fallout” got its world premiere in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Thursday, as cast and crew literally lined up to praise the “City of Lights” where much of the movie was shot.
The action adventure is the sixth in the wildly successful franchise produced by Cruise – 2015’s “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” took in $682 million at the global box office.
The new movie sees Cruise’s Ethan Hunt reunite with his fellow agents played by Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames and Rebecca Ferguson to destroy an international terror cell and avert nuclear catastrophe.
Arriving for the premiere in the Palais de Chaillot, opposite the Eiffel Tower, Cruise spent over an hour signing autographs and posing for selfies.
“It’s all about the audience. It’s all about making the movie for them and I can’t wait for them to see it,” he said before the screening.
The French capital is the setting for much of the film and many of its stunts including Cruise’s helmet-less motorbike race through oncoming traffic round the Arc de Triomphe and his leap from a military transport plane at 25 000 feet.
“We were in the city, under the city, over the city, you name a corner of the city and we shot it and they were very generous to let us shoot,” director Chris McQuarrie said.
Cruise famously does his own stunts and in the latest movie even pilots a helicopter through the mountains, though he insisted that he is never scared.
Trying to thwart Cruise’s do-gooding is Henry Cavill – better known for playing Superman – who appears as a CIA-paid hitman who joins the bad guys and ends up fighting Cruise on a cliff edge moments before nuclear armageddon.
“Mission: Impossible – Fallout” starts its international rollout in movie theatres on July 25.
