Since Tom Cruise is between “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning” movies he’s definitely still playing Ethan Hunt in his mind.
Last night at the glitzy New York premiere of Part One, Cruise brought along his security team — 19, in all — on the top of regular studio muscle at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
The 19 member squad — who were quite stealth — added to a very chill atmosphere, the so the premiere ran like clockwork.
Among the celebs we ran int were Gayle King, Sherri Shepherd, and Michael “General Zod” Shannon. I’m pretty sure I saw Kenan Thompson in the audience, wearing dark sunglasses, plus David Faber from CNBC. Viacom owner Shari Redstone was there and took pictures with Tom– after all, she’s paying for all of this. Other execs came in from Los Angeles, too. I also got to meet Jon Watts, who directed the three Tom Holland “Spider Man” movies, all blockbusters. I asked him, “What happens now that no one remembers Peter Parker?” He replied, drolly, “That’s someone else’s problem now!” (His next film is called “Wolves” with Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Amy Ryan.)
There were also crowds of “influencers,” the newest genre of guest de rigeur at any film opening. These are droves of people you’ve never seen before all of whom have lots of “followers” on social media. They get the word out. (I sat with a really nice group of them.)
On stage before the screening, Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie lavished praise on the assembled members of their cast including including Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Mariela Garriga, and Vanessa Kirby. The guys were Cary Elwes, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Shea Wigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, and Henry Czerny. Only Ving Rhames was missing, probably exhausted from doing premieres around the world. (Spoiler: one of them may not make it all the way through the movie.)
Cruise and McQuarrie — who they all called “McQ” — have developed an easy banter introducing the movie and the actors, and reminiscing about the production. They want to make sure you know they had a good time, even though COVID caused a lot of interruptions. As far as Cruise doing all these death defying stunts in the movie: Tom said to McQ, “You tried to kill me!” The director laughed and shot back, “I never tried to kill you!”
“Dead Reckoning Part One” hits theaters on Wednesday, and will definitely set box office records.
