Mission: Impossible 6 delays production after Tom Cruise injury

Production on the sixth Mission: Impossible film will go on hiatus after its star, Tom Cruise, was injured while performing a stunt.

“During production on the latest Mission: Impossible film, Tom Cruise broke his ankle while performing a stunt,” Paramount Pictures said in a statement Wednesday. “Production will go on hiatus while Tom makes a full recovery, and the film remains on schedule to open July 27, 2018. Tom wants to thank you all for your concern and support and can’t wait to share the film with everyone next summer.”

The studio’s statement doesn’t specify how long filming will be delayed, but Variety, which was first to report the news, says it could be between six weeks and three months in order to give Cruise time to heal.

Director Christopher McQuarrie also shared an update on Twitter, writing, “Thank you all for your support and concern. Tom is on the mend and MI6 is on track for 07.27.2018.”

In an interview with Empire, McQuarrie explained that while the video of Cruise injuring himself made it appear like the star had fallen short of making a jump between buildings, the stunt actually went off as planned.

“The speculation was that Tom had somehow missed or fell short. The truth is that the stunt was never designed for Tom to jump from rooftop to rooftop which a) would have been pretty boring and b) when you see the actual shot you’ll understand how it was designed,” McQuarrie said. “Also, when you look at what was posted on the internet, you can see Tom do the same stunt multiple times. He was always supposed to slam into the side of the building. That’s what gives the stunt its energy. He was completely safe the entire time he was doing that. He was padded. What happened is a matter of coordinating what Tom is doing with what the camera is doing, which means you have to do it a number of times. And on the fourth try, he hit the building at a slightly different angle and he broke his ankle. He knew the instant that he hit the building that his ankle was broken. You can see it on his face. We had four cameras rolling on it, and you can see it on the video that’s on the internet. He knew in that instant, ‘well, we’re not coming back here. We’re not doing this again today’. So he got up and powered through the shot, and then he got off-camera and as soon as he knew he was off-camera he went down. He knew that was the only way to preserve the shot. I don’t know that I would have the wherewithal to do that.”

Cruise is known for performing many of his own stunts, including ones in previous Mission: Impossible films like scaling Dubai’s Burj Khalifa in Ghost Protocol and dangling off the side of a plane as it takes off in Rogue Nation.

Mission: Impossible 6 also stars Henry Cavill, Alec Baldwin, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, and Michelle Monaghan.