Spoily Bits

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WARNING! Spoilers Follow!

After realizing the Promo Thread is not the place to post plot information I've created this space for those who like a little spoiler with their coffee.

So.

Got an early review?

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Got Press Kit info?

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Got images, interviews, articles that are . . . well.

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This IS the place for any and all spoilers so if you go beyond this point and ruin your movie, no whining.

WARNING! Spoilers Follow!

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Let's begin . . .

TEAM GHOST PROTOCOL

ETHAN HUNT (Tom Cruise) must evolve as an agent, going from lone wolf to a true team leader. “Ethan has really relied on himself in the previous three movies, but in this movie he has to rely on others. It’s a great challenge for him because he’s been betrayed so many times by team members and his organization and now he has no choice but to trust these three people whom he hardly knows.”

For this film, Appelbaum and Nemec also liked the idea of having a strong female agent. As Brad Bird describes her, AGENT JANE CARTER (Paula Patton) “is a badass.” Though she has yet had a lot of experience as a field agent, she is driven by something besides her desire to complete the mission: revenge. “She’s enormously talented, very charismatic and really took the physicality the role required head-on,” Cruise notes. Jane, Patton says, “is as fierce as the boys, if not fiercer – she’s someone to contend with.”

Returning from MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III is the team’s technical wizard, BENJI DUNN (Simon Pegg), who has graduated to field agent. Pegg describes the character as “the ultimate I.T. guy. He’s the computer guy who just knows everything about everything.” Josh Appelbaum recalls, “J.J. said, ‘I would love to see Benji come out from behind the desk and be in the field.’ So we just had some fun with the idea because we were so used to seeing those hardened agents that have been on mission after mission and, instead, having Ethan with this guy who hasn’t been in the field that long. This is all sort of new to him.” Pegg also brings a great amount of wit and humor to his character, which is unique to this film in a franchise that is known for its intense, action packed sequences.

For AGENT WILLIAM BRANDT (Jeremy Renner), “We liked the idea of meeting this character as more of a desk jockey – a suit,” explains Appelbaum. “We only later realize that he has these great capabilities. Brandt gives Ethan another agent to be squaring off with through the course of the movie and that’s something that hadn’t been done before.”
The character had immediate appeal to Renner. “Brandt is an analyst, a seemingly tight-wound desk guy who is smart as a whip, and that’s his job. He’s not very emotional about things. Then, you slowly start to see the revealing of who he really is – particularly through seeing this physical skill set you would not expect out of a tight, blue shirt-wearing analyst. He doesn’t really want to be part of the team, but circumstances force him to join the group,” says Renner.

Renner came to the project almost by chance, after a quick meeting with Abrams regarding another project, on a day when Cruise happened to be visiting for a production meeting. “Then, literally, from that meeting, I just came over to Paramount and sat down with Brad Bird, Bryan Burk and Tom, and they pitched me the story – there wasn’t even a script yet. They described the character and it seemed pretty interesting. I couldn’t say no.”

Bird couldn’t have been happier with the team and its casting. “All of these people are terrific screen presences, and together they were like four different rhythms and voices and tempos that synchronized really well onscreen,” he says. Cruise agrees. “I’m a fan of their work and you see the characters they create. Each member is a unique piece creating a wonderful dynamic for the team.”

This fourth installment also features an international cast with actors and characters from Russia, India, Sweden and France.

“KURT HENDRICKS (Michael Nyqvist) hearkens back to that Cold War-era kind of bad guy – he’s got a wildly destructive plan and he’s bent on executing,” says André Nemec. “He’s very old school,” agrees Swedish-born actor Michael Nyqvist. The idea for a sociopathic bad guy with a plan bent on world destruction came out of discussions between Bird, Cruise and Abrams. “There was a real desire to not make his plan too complicated or too abstract,” explains Appelbaum. “It’s a big, old school bad guy plan. What’s new school is the modern manner in which we go after him, and the manner in which he’s trying to avoid us. “What’s really weird, though, is that he believes he’s morally correct, and that’s always a very dangerous enemy to face because they believe they’re justified in what they’re doing. As far as he’s concerned, he’s fighting for good,” says Simon Pegg.

SABINE MOREAU, played by Léa Seydoux, is straight out of the classic spy films. “She’s an assassin – she kills for money – or, in the case of GHOST PROTOCOL, diamonds will do just fine,” says the French actress of her character. “She’s brutal, but with a little tenderness, which makes it even more evil,” remarks Josh Holloway who plays TREVOR HANAWAY, an IMF Agent who has a very significant encounter with Moreau.

Rounding out the cast are Indian star ANIL KAPOOR, widely known for his performance in the Academy Award®-winning “Slumdog Millionaire,” as an Indian communications magnate and Russian actor VLADIMIR MASHKOV as Russian intelligence operative ANATOLY SIDIROV. This incredible team of international characters celebrates the worldwide audiences that have long supported the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE Franchise.

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Speaking of

By Chris Eggertsen: "In anticipation of the roundtable interviews, I was invited to screen a few different scenes from the film at the IMAX headquarters in Santa Monica last Sunday. Showing up at the agreed-upon time, I found myself puzzled by the lack of other people around, particularly people I recognized (these screenings are often populated with journalists from various other outlets who you come to know by doing this for long enough).

Not only that, but I wasn't greeted in the normal way - you know, by a smiling publicist with gleaming white teeth sitting in front of a clipboard and a stack of press notes. No, see, there was almost complete silence in the IMAX lobby as I took a seat on one of the plush chairs and, unnerved, began fiddling with my iPhone as the other four people inside - three men and one woman, all talking somewhat apprehensively a few feet away - looked at me with puzzled expressions.

Was I in the right place? Well, surely, I thought to myself. After all, there was a giant "Ghost Protocol" standee just behind me, and this was the correct address...

Suddenly, one of the men stood up and walked over to one of the windows at the other end of the room - the soft glow from the afternoon light outside highlighting his decidedly anxious facial expression.

Are they here yet? One of his companions asked quietly.

No, not yet, he replied.

And that was when I began to get really nervous. I looked over to the man who had first barely greeted me as I walked in the front door as if to say: Just what have I stumbled into here, sir, and how in christ's name do I get out of it? And yet, just like everyone else there, he wasn't looking at me anymore - his gaze turned toward that front window, waiting, searching...for what?

I stood up and attempted to mingle. Everyone else had gotten to their feet, almost as a unit. Two of them introduced themselves to me and asked where I was from.

"HitFix," I replied. "I'm from HitFix." There was an odd sense that I was simultaneously reassuring myself by speaking the words aloud. They both nodded courteously at the name and then went quiet.

Suddenly, a car pulled up. Postures stiffened. I was frightened, quite honestly. I felt the urge to run and hide someplace. Everyone began moving, almost uncertainly, toward the glass front doors. I stood frozen in place, staring through them into the gray afternoon outside...

He appeared then, moving to open the door - smiling, of course, with that big, famous grin of his. Tom Cruise. Not just Tom, but Katie Holmes too, entering the lobby and then greeting each and every one of us in turn.

"Hi, I'm Tom," he grinned at me as he approached and stuck out his hand. "Chris," I said back, somehow afraid that he might suddenly turn on me and begin, I don't know, screaming in my face and asking for my legal ID or something. Through the haze of my confusion, I began to wonder what, exactly, were Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes doing at the IMAX headquarters on a Sunday afternoon for a screening of only a few minutes of film, a film that he was in and had produced and that surely he'd already seen?

Katie, wearing a black dress and heels, impossibly tall, came up and introduced herself too, and I could've sworn a hint of recognition flashed across her face as we met eyes. Perhaps she remembered me from the "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" junket? If she did, would she say that she did? Would I be found out - me, an intruder who clearly didn't belong in this place at his particular moment in time?

But then just as quickly she turned her back and began listening to Tom, who with a few simple words had drawn all attention in the room. We all laughed, I think, at the things he was saying, with that famous smile and that youthful, glowy complexion, though I couldn't quite register all of it as I stood in complete bewilderment. This went on for a bit; we laughed some more. And then, just as quickly, we were being ushered into a nearby screening room.

I entered the black space as if in a daydream, shuffled along by the people who were now all clearly IMAX representatives, bewildered but seemingly hopeless to stall the forward motion of what was happening.

As I stepped inside and stared up at the rows of stadium seating, Tom asked where the best seat in the house was, and was quickly informed that third row, center was his best bet. I stood there, dumbly, in a half-circle of people I didn't know, and then Tom started talking again, aggressively, asking questions of a man with a gray beard who had emerged as the spokesperson for the group.

How many IMAX screens will we be sharing with 'TinTin'? he wondered, and How many total IMAX screens are there, anyway? and other such things. Question after question, in a blur, and I felt a sort of numb concern for the man fielding them, though I was secretly glad that it wasn't me. Tom stated his belief, at one point, that IMAX was the future of cinema, or something of that nature, though someone reminded him that at $18 a ticket seeing a film in the large-screen format was currently out of reach for many American families. He nodded in agreement.

The conversation veered into 3D at one point, too, and Katie said something, once, just as she began fiddling with her long, brunette hair. A mention of Suri not liking the glasses.

And then with a word from Tom the conversation ended; he was ready to watch the film. As he and Katie turned to take their seats, I looked over at the man next to me, and, whispering guiltily, asked if they would be screening the entire film. He said yes, and then - resisting the urge to simply nod my understanding and promptly take a seat in the front row - I finally spat out the words I'd been meaning to say for so long but hadn't quite been able to muster: "I think I'm in the wrong place."

And I was; the press screening had been moved to 7 PM, only I'd been accidentally dropped from the email list and thereby hadn't been informed. This was Tom and Katie's own private show, see, and I'd crashed it through no fault of my own. Still, I couldn't help but feel a little guilty at my luck (?) as I stepped back out into the dim light of the late afternoon, halfway thankful to have successfully extricated myself and halfway cold at having had my close proximity to the famous couple cut off so abruptly."

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Physics? What Physics?

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"Our lengthy chase sequence starts in Dubai and will take us into a dust storm and through many different locations. The first day of shooting, we did a dust storm test for this sequence. From a comfortable distance, i shot Tom facing into a giant wind machine that blew mashed cardboard at him. he spotted me and called for me to get closer and shoot some pictures. I jumped straight in there with him. Thank you to the medics who washed out my eyes afterwards."

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MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DISAVOWED, DISCONNECTED

IMPOSSIBLE MISSIONS FORCE (IMF) agents JANE CARTER (Paula Patton) and TREVOR HANAWAY (Josh Holloway) and brilliant tech whiz, BENJI DUNN (Simon Pegg) are tasked with finding a courier carrying nuclear launch codes. Very unfortunately, their mission goes awry and the codes fall into the hands of a sultry assassin, SABINE MOREAU (Léa Seydoux).

Meanwhile, team leader ETHAN HUNT (Tom Cruise) must be extracted from a Moscow prison and the group is assigned the task of breaking into the Kremlin to retrieve information about the intended recipient of the codes; a man code-named Cobalt. Shortly thereafter, Cobalt blows their cover and, before Ethan and Benji can escape, a tremendous explosion rocks Red Square. Ethan finds himself and the entire IMF being blamed to the point that the President invokes “Ghost Protocol” – a complete dissemination of the agency.

Having inherited a new team member, WILLIAM BRANDT (Jeremy Renner), Hunt finds himself, for the first time, working with a team he did not choose. On the surface, Brandt is a desk-bound analyst, but he carries a more complicated past. Begrudgingly, Ethan and this new team must work together as one – all without any support or backup from the now-defunct IMF – if they are to clear their names, complete their mission and prevent nuclear annihilation.

In developing this plot, Appelbaum recalls, “J.J. called us and asked if we could come up with a story with a way to show Ethan in a different light from the previous films. Ethan Hunt is the heart of the franchise, but they were looking for a way to tell a story that’s really about him trying to lead a team, and keep the team intact, against great odds.” Thus was born the concept of the Ghost Protocol, in which the entire IMF agency was being disavowed. “We thought that without having resources, it would be a great way to instantly bond Ethan to his team and to help us fall in love with these other characters. We wanted to challenge Ethan as both player and coach – a guy who’s not only in it, but is in it with a team that isn’t fully gelling. So, he’s got to try and pull the team together, all while working on the fly.”

Another caveat unique to this film is they are also stripped of their usual support – no resources, no extractions, no backup. “In the world of technology and information that we live in, we wanted to strip the agents of their ability to rely on immediate intel and access. We wanted the gadgets that they use to not always be working properly. To not necessarily make their jobs easier,” says Nemec. Ethan’s Gecko Gloves, which he uses to climb the outside of a building, and the otherwise-indispensible mask making machine both fail the team when most needed. Adds Appelbaum, “It’s the idea that everything in life doesn’t go off exactly like planned and we wanted that to be true for our agents, as well. They couldn’t rely on their agency, they couldn’t always rely on the tools and gadgets and tricks that they had. They really had to rely on themselves. This movie isn’t about unlimited firepower. These people are smart in their intuition and their training, in really clever and inventive ways.”

The producers even encouraged Bird to incorporate his own ideas about what makes a spy movie cool. “When I first got involved, they said, ‘Well, we have this story line but, other than that, are there any cool things you’ve always wanted to see in a spy movie?’ It was like looking at it from a moviegoer level, in terms of what kinds of things you’d want to see if you were sitting in the audience watching this.” Things such as Brandt’s Eyecam lens (a contact lens which functions as a video display), throwing off a meet-and-swap meeting with Moreau, a sandstorm chase and, after Ethan retrieves his mission assignment from a payphone, which “will self-destruct in five seconds” – but doesn’t, at least not without a swift kick from Mr. Hunt, all came from Bird. “He really brought that constant sense that the mission plan is not 100% working.” says Nemec. “Brad was able to look at things with a little bit of a ‘fun’ lens, which we loved.”

Complicating matters is the team members’ knowledge of Ethan’s reputation within the agency. “Part of starting off with finding him imprisoned is wanting to play into a character that isn’t necessarily coming into this with a bunch of medals on his chest. The team isn’t going, ‘Of course I’ll follow that guy into battle!’ It’s more like, ‘Well, that guy did something that earned him being imprisoned.’ So, they’re always wondering if he’s making the right calls along the way.”

The producers also wished to create a film that, though part of a series franchise, could stand alone, story-wise, so that audiences didn’t have to be familiar with what had gone on in the previous MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movies to enjoy or follow GHOST PROTOCOL. “We made a conscious effort to make it so if you had never seen the other films, it didn’t matter,” Burk explains. “You could watch this film and easily follow the story and understand Ethan’s backstory and where he is because the movie is completely self-contained. And, if you have seen the previous films, then you’ll be able to draw more from it.”

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BUILDING THE TEAM

“I loved the show when I was a kid,” says Cruise. “I felt that, as a film, it could take us to different locations, have pulse-racing action sequences and smart, innovative tech. It was the first film I ever produced. As a filmmaker and as an actor, I’m always thinking about the audience. I want to entertain them and give them a new adventure every time.”

The last film, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, was directed by J.J. Abrams who returns as a producer on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL. “I like to work with people who I admire, like J.J., who are really smart and talented. I really loved the television work he had done, particularly with ‘Alias,’ and I wanted him to make his first movie with me. We had an amazing time on M:I 3 and I love J.J., so to work with him again on this would mean we’d get to have some fun together and create another amazing movie.”

To write the new film, Abrams brought in two of his collaborators from his popular television show, “Alias,” Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, who had worked on that series for three years. “When Tom approached us about doing this film, they immediately came to mind,” says Abrams’ producing partner Bryan Burk. “We know their ability to work in this genre, to craft interesting and unique stories in the espionage world and to create really big set pieces. They know how to bring the characters to life and make them rich.”

“These are the hardest movies to make,” says Cruise. “It’s always about coming up with a fresh story – how do we make it interesting and keep up the suspense?” The first three films were mammoth hits, collectively grossing more than $2 billion worldwide. Each helmed by a different director, it gives each Mission film a unique look and feel

Animation director Brad Bird may not have been the most obvious choice for a huge action film, but he did end up being the easiest. Having only made three movies to date – and all of them animated – he won Academy Awards® for Best Animated Feature Film for two of them: “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille” so he certainly had an incredible track record.

The fact that the director came from an animation background didn’t affect the producers’ choice, but his skill as a filmmaker did. “Brad was someone we’d been a longtime fan of. It was only a matter of time before he jumped over to live action. Thankfully, it was with us.” says Bryan Burk.
Cruise had also admired Brad’s work ever since he first saw his animated films. Recalls Bird, “Tom had seen ‘Incredibles’ and liked it a lot and just wanted to meet with me. So, I went over to his house and we just talked about movies. We were immediately very comfortable with each other and about our attitudes towards the medium of film.”

Cruise adds, “I called him up and said, ‘Look, you wanna come by? I’ve got to meet you.’ And it was like an old friend talking about our favorite movies. When we were talking, I said, ‘If you ever want to direct live action, please direct me.’ Even in his animated work, he shoots like a live action director. His sequences are amazing, as are his characters. He has great wit and sense of composition and he knows how to keep the tension and suspense in his stories.”

Recalls Bird, “I had known J.J. for years and we’d been trying to find something that we could collaborate on, but the timing never seemed to work out. I came to J.J. and told him, ‘I’ve got this project that I’ve put aside – is there anything cool?’ And he goes, ‘Mission: Impossible?’ He told me the idea and I was immediately intrigued, and it just suddenly went into hyperspace from there.” Echoing Tom’s approach to giving each director their own voice, Bird says “They don’t try to get the directors to conform to the style of the franchise, which would mean just plugging yourself in and being a robot,” he explains. “All of the films contain similar elements, with Ethan Hunt addressing unsolvable problems, but each one has its own distinct flavor and style.” It was an opportunity Bird couldn’t pass up. “It was a chance to work with J.J. and Tom, all in one fell swoop.”

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TRAVELING THE INTERNATIONAL GLOBE

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL is an action-packed thrill ride, filled with mind-boggling stunts, rich characters, the coolest gadgets and stunning locations. Filmed over a five month period from October 2010 to March 2011, production took the film from Los Angeles to Moscow, Prague, Dubai, Mumbai, and Vancouver.

“These are globe-trotting movies,” says Brad Bird of the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series. “That’s part of their appeal.” Adds executive producer Jeffrey Chernov, “Looking for locations for GHOST PROTOCOL was always about finding the most exotic places. That was something that was really important for Tom. What we’re out to do is really deliver entertainment in the most exotic locales.”

Production began in Prague in October 2010. “I think Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world,” says Bird. The prison where they filmed was actually the long-closed Mladá Boleslav Prison, northeast of Prague. “It was super creepy to walk through on our initial scout – thinking it was a real prison where people, albeit criminals, had been interned,” recalls André Nemec. The facility was spruced up by production designer Jim Bissell for the three-day shoot. “It was a very old building, but we needed to go in and make it look hi-tech, something Jim melded together very well,” notes Bird.

The spectacular explosion of Red Square in Moscow and a portion of The Kremlin was actually created using background plate photography of the actual Red Square, shot by Oscar® –winning visual effects supervisor John Knoll (“Star Wars,” “Avatar”). “We planned out the geography of where everybody is and when, and then shot these hi-resolution panoramas and running shots of the square,” Knoll explains. Those shots were then combined with combined with footage of Cruise and other cast members being hurled through the air, filmed in Vancouver at Canadian Motion Picture Park, where the production shot on as many as six stages and served as the film’s North American production base.

One of the most magnificent locations used in the film is the city of Dubai, located in the United Arab Emirates – not only used for its striking beauty, but also as the backdrop for one of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTCOL’s most memorable and impressive stunts.

“When you arrive in Dubai, it’s just striking. It’s this incredible 21st century city that literally just rises out of the desert,” says producer Bryan Burk. “The city had never truly been photographed for a motion picture portraying itself,” Brad Bird notes. Filmmakers had not yet taken advantage of the vertical scale of Dubai. “It’s cinematic from the get-go,” notes Bird. “A lot of the architecture is very imaginative and seems so futuristic. The fact that it’s surrounded by desert is such a surreal sight, because it’s just dunes and flatness, and there’s this city rising up like Oz. It’s understandable why other filmmakers were attracted to Dubai as a visual playground.”

In 2009, while Burk and Abrams were traveling the world to promote “Star Trek,” they stopped one night in Dubai, on their way to show their new film to the troops in Kuwait. “We got a tour of the city, and J.J. turned to me and said, ‘We HAVE to come back here and shoot a movie.’” A year later, when conversations about a new MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie were taking place, Burk says, “We started asking ourselves, ‘Well, where would be a great place to set it?’ And J.J. just said, ‘Well, what about Dubai? We could set a scene at the Burj Khalifa.’”

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