Christopher McQuarrie, director of the upcoming Mission: Impossible 7, clarified some misconceptions about the film's bridge destruction stunt. The Mission: Impossible series is widely known for its bombastic and in-camera stunt work, mostly stemming from what Tom Cruise is willing to do to his body in the name of entertainment. McQuarrie has directed every film since 2015's Rogue Nation, and has consistently raised the stakes when it comes to what stunts Cruise will pull off. Between the two films McQuarrie has directed, Cruise has hung off the side of a flying plane, sky dived, and has broken his ankle jumping from building to building.
Keeping in line with this series of escalating stunts, it was reported that for Mission: Impossible 7, the production was going to blow up a real bridge in Poland. The bridge had been decommissioned in 2016, having been deemed too dangerous for public use. Because of that, the M.I. 7 production was given permission to blow a part of it up. The bridge in question was thought to have been built in 1906, and many people became outraged that McQuarrie and the rest of the production would destroy something of historical significance.
Now, in a statement released to Empire, McQuarrie clarified that there has been a lot of misconceptions, and some outright lies, about the upcoming bridge destruction. It had been widely stated the that bridge was a protected monument - which McQuarrie confirmed that it isn't. Further, the bridge was already going to be destroyed in order to make room for a new railroad system in order to attract more tourism. McQuarrie and his team, in an effort to keep up with franchise traditions, were simply taking advantage of a situation in which the bridge was already on its way out.
"The area in question was eager to promote tourism. Local roads being what they are, their best chance to do this rested in revitalizing an outdated rail system. This included replacing the main decking of the bridge in question, which engineers had deemed structurally unsound. The bridge was not built entirely in 1906 as has been reported. That bridge was partially destroyed by the retreating Germans during the Second World War before being rebuilt (the current bridge is, in fact, one of two very similar ones in the area, neither of which is a protected monument). Bottom line: to open up the area to tourism, the bridge needed to go."
Another point of note in McQuarrie's statement was that many of the misconceptions about the stunt were spread by a person who felt the need to retaliate after they were not given a job on the Mission: Impossible 7 production. According to McQuarrie, this person had been harassing various member of the M.I. 7 crew on social media, and purposely decided to spread lies about the details of the bridge stunt.
"One individual, for reasons I cannot specify without revealing their identity, claimed they were owed a job on the production for which we felt they were not adequately qualified. When this individual's demands were not met, they retaliated. After harassing members of our production publicly and anonymously on social media, as well as privately, this individual misrepresented our intentions and concealed their personal reasons for wanting to penalize us."
McQuarrie's comments should temper the worries of those concerned about maintaining historically significant monuments. As much as moviegoers love seeing Tom Cruise nearly kill himself for the sake of entertainment, the needless destruction of a 100 year old bridge did seem like it was going a step too far. While film productions shouldn't callously destroy structures, historically significant or not, the fact that parts of the bridge were going to be destroyed anyway does put the Mission: Impossible 7 production team's intentions in a very different light. While the outrage around the news is certainly understandable, McQuarrie's clarification reveals that the situation was not as black-and-white as it originally seemed. Given that the bridge was condemned and already on the chopping block, fans looking forward to Mission: Impossible 7 should rest assured that the production is acting with good intentions.
Source: Empire
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