Tom Cruise Restarts Training for MI7, Does Motorcross, Helicopter Stunts

Famous for insisting on doing his own stunts, sometimes even against studio bosses' wish, the actor has resumed training for the upcoming Mission: Impossible 7, which should start shooting soon in the UK.

Like most other Hollywood productions, MI7 came to a screeching halt earlier this year, when the health crisis started. First, shooting in Venice, Italy was canceled and the entire team moved to the UK to continue filming scenes. In mid-March, the entire production halted.

One month ago, news came that the seventh installment in the MI franchise would soon resume shooting, with exceptional measures being considered to keep the cast and crew safe. Allegedly, these also included building an entire "village" of Winnebago luxury trailers where the actors and cast would live in a "bubble" for as long as they needed to film every scene. It was later revealed that Cruise would actually be living in a hotel room, but everyone else will still get to camp out in a trailer for several months.

Cruise is already back at work, even if the rest of the team isn't. On a piece of land the studio is renting from a local farmer in Oxfordshire, on which the actor asked that he be built a dirt track, he was seen practicing motorcross stunts. According to the Daily Mail, later that day, Cruise also took a helicopter out for a spin, presumably the same bird you can see in the video at the bottom of the page.

On July 5, Cruise had a chat with Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden and managed to obtain special permission from the UK government for Mission: Impossible 7 to resume filming with exemptions from nationwide regulations. Put it differently, because MI7 is deemed an essentially British production, actors and crew flying in from abroad will be able to get on set right away, without being forced to spend 14 days in quarantine. The condition is that they live in "bubbles" (closed movie sets) during their time in the UK.

"The world's biggest blockbusters and high-end TV shows are made in Britain," Dowden said. "We want the industry to bounce back and exempting small numbers of essential cast and crew from quarantine is part of our continued commitment to getting cameras rolling safely again."

As of the time of press, Mission: Impossible 7 is scheduled for a tentative November 2021 release.