Mission: Impossible — ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning almost included a de-aged Tom Cruise, and while the sequence itself sounds solid, the results would have varied. De-aging technology has come a long way. While effects like Patrick Stewart in X-Men: The Last Stand haven’t aged gracefully, others, like Samuel L. Jackson’s in Captain Marvel, still look good a few years later. However, it can still be distracting, especially when the older actor appears in the same film. Even if it’s a great scene, the uncanny valley appearance can cause a moment to lose its impact.

Fortunately, the Mission: Impossible series strayed from utilizing de-aging technology, mainly because it didn’t need to. Cruise refuses to age, even at 62, and there are many practical ways films can make its stars look younger through makeup and hairstyling. However, director Christopher McQuarrie revealed that a de-aged flashback almost snuck its way into the final cut of ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning. While his pitch sounds great, de-aging actors always come with risk, and it’s for the best that this scene never saw the light of day.

The Ethan Hunt Flashback Sequence Idea, Explained By Christopher McQuarrie

It Would’ve Been Set In 1989

ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning included a flashback sequence connecting Ethan to the film’s villain Gabriel (Esai Morales), who was working for The Enтιтy. In the film, it’s revealed that in 1989, Gabriel killed Ethan’s girlfriend, Marie, and framed him for her murder. The only way Ethan escaped prison was by joining the IMF, the organization that ultimately defeated Gabriel in the Final Reckoning in a moment of poetic justice.

In an interview on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, McQuarrie explained that he originally wanted to de-age Cruise and Esai Morales for this sequence. He also wanted to cast Julia Roberts to play Marie, de-aging her as well. However, he and the rest of the crew realized that the cost of de-aging these actors would have been the same as Final Reckoning‘s submarine sequence. He also mentions that it would have been distracting because all the audience would be thinking about is how good the de-aging looks.

“What we ended up realizing was if you de-age those three people, if you took Esai and Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise and de-age them and put them all in the same scene, it would have been as expensive as the submarine. It’s so much money to do that de-aging correctly when you have multiple characters in a sH๏τ. As soon as I researched the technology, I realized if you’re gonna do something like this, it has to be awesome…what I look at when it works, when it works, all I’m thinking is, ‘Wow, this de-aging is really good.'”

Additionally, McQuarrie wanted to make it an homage to the 1980s style of filmmaking, similar to something Cruise would have starred in. The director said it would have looked like something Tony Scott might have made, who famously directed the first Top Gun. McQuarrie was a producer on Top Gun: Maverick, so he knows something about trying to recreate that style.

“I realized okay, it would have been, what was the Mission Impossible before Mission Impossible? If I’m shooting Ethan’s past, if I’m shooting Mission.5, it would have been 1989 and that’s how we found Julia Roberts because she was just popping and we thought it would have been Tony Scott’s.”

McQuarrie Is Right, De-Aged Tom Cruise Would’ve Been Distracting

But A Mash-up Of Mission: Impossible & Top Gun Sounds Amazing

While Cruise is ageless, it would have been noticeable if he looked 30 years younger in a flashback sequence. The digital de-aging effects can be impressive, but they’re still easy to notice. Young Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny did look adequate, but it was impossible not to think about the effect while looking at it. It would have been even more distracting if the scene added Roberts, a major star who’s recognizable to many.

Still, McQuarrie’s comments about the sequence looking like a Tony Scott production are intriguing. Maverick did an excellent job at recreating the look of the original while doing something new, and it would have been awesome to see how that translated into a Mission: Impossible story. It would have been a nice tribute to Scott while adding some nostalgia for Top Gun. Still, it’s better that Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning steered away from doing this, as the effects would have taken away from this flashback that has so much emotional impact for Ethan.

Source: Happy Sad Confused podcast