It will kick off with outdoor scenes, Simon Pegg said.
Christopher McQuarrie, Tom Cruise on the sets of Mission: Impossible – Fallout
Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures
Mission: Impossible 7 is preparing for a September production restart, star Simon Pegg and first assistant director Tommy Gormley have revealed. That's great news for the global film industry, which has been completely shut down owing to the lockdown in place amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. A big-budgeted fixture in Mission: Impossible planning to resume filming is music to everyone's ears, given the variety and size of crew, cast members, and shooting locations that are needed for a project of its scale.
A September restart is “the plan,” Pegg told Variety. “That will begin with the outdoor stuff. That feels fairly doable, and obviously there will be precautions put in place. Pegg joked that fight scenes would be shot “five feet apart” and then added in a more serious tone: “People that are involved in any close proximity stuff, it will have to be determined that they're safe to do that. I don't know what the testing situation is, how that works, or whether they'll be able to be tested regularly.”
“We were days from shooting in Venice […] when it all kicked off, so we had to shut down,” Gormley told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. “We hope to restart in September, we hope to visit all the countries we planned to and look to do a big chunk of it back in the UK on the backlot and in the studio, so September through to end April / May [2021] is our target. We are convinced we can do this.”
“Some things are very challenging such as stunt scenes, crowd scenes etc. but we can't do a Mission Impossible movie and not have a fight scene or car scenes in it,” Gormley added. “This is our challenge. We are not a chamber piece movie. We do spectacle, and that is what people expect of us. […] If we have the protocols in place and we break down all the procedures very carefully, we will get it going again.”
Pegg and Gormley's comments come a day after the British Film Commission published guidelines for filming in the time of coronavirus. Similar guidelines have been published across the world, including in the states of Maharashtra and California, whose capitals are the respective home of Bollywood and Hollywood.
In addition to Pegg, Mission: Impossible 7 stars returning cast members Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, and Henry Czerny (from the first M:I film). Joining them on Mission: Impossible 7 are Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter), Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Esai Morales (NYPD Blue), and Shea Whigham (Boardwalk Empire).
Mission: Impossible 7 is currently slated to open November 19, 2021 worldwide.
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