‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’ Almost Opened With a De-Aged Tom Cruise Flashback

Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One

We nearly saw a 1989 vintage Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Mercifully, for now, we were spared it. It’s a cool bit of technological trickery, but it’s hard to argue that the trend of de-aging is taking us down a dangerous path in Hollywood. Instead of creating new stars, let’s just make our old ones young again using the magic of computers. A major selling point of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was the much-hyped opening sequence which featured a de-aged Harrison Ford (who sounded like old Harrison Ford) but the scene, while fun in its initial novelty, was jarring.

With Cruise, the man still moves like he’s in his 40s. There’s no need to de-age him yet. The film does feature a scene with de-aging – however, it’s antagonist Esai Morales who’s given the effect. Fortunately, the shot (and scene) is brief and doesn’t linger, avoiding that uncanny effect that your mind can’t quite ignore. Given that the scene is a flashback to a moment when Ethan Hunt is supposed to have lost someone close to him, we can make the assumption that a young Tom Cruise was meant to have appeared here too.

The scene would have added a supposed greater depth to the motivation behind why Cruise was so afraid and concerned about the threat of Morales’ character, Gabriel, who has been “handpicked” by the sentient artificial intelligence known as The Entity to carry out its work on Earth. How biblical.

RELATED: ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One’ Beats the “Part One” Curse

Too Much Distraction

Director Christopher McQuarrie has been talking with Total Film about the plans they originally had to feature a younger Cruise in the opening of the movie, but ultimately he decided against it – and a big factor behind that was a simple one: McQuarrie couldn’t accept seeing a younger version of someone he knew so well on screen, believing it felt too artificial.

“Originally, there had been a whole sequence at the beginning of the movie that was going to take place in 1989. We talked about it as a cold open, we talked about it as flashbacks in the movie, we looked at de-aging. One of the big things about [the de-aging] I was looking at while researching, I kept saying, ‘Boy, this de-aging is really good’ or ‘This de-aging is not so good.’ Never did I find myself actually following the story. I was so distracted by an actor that I had known for however long was now suddenly this young person.”

That’s not to say McQuarrie has ruled out the practice altogether. The director believes he’s figured out a way to make it work – but it’s not the time or place for it quite yet, as he explained: “In researching that, I cracked the code – I think – on how best to approach it,” McQuarrie said “By then, we had kind of moved away from it. We may still play with it. We never say never.”

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is currently playing in theaters. Check out our interview with the actual 61-year-old Tom Cruise down below.