Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie are shooting flight scenes for “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two” on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea, which Cruise reached by helicopter from the Italian port city of Bari, where he jetted into on Saturday.
Confirming Italian press reports, the head of the Apulia Film Commission Antonio Parente told Variety on Thursday that Cruise flew into Bari, which is the Apulia region’s capital city, on Saturday Feb. 25. After spending the night in Bari’s 5-star Hotel Delle Nazioni, Cruise on Sunday hopped on a private helicopter from the Bari airport to go shoot scenes for the eighth “Mission Impossible” installment on an U.S. aircraft carrier “which is probably the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush, but we are not sure,” Parente said.
He added that the U.S. naval vessel was near the Italian coast when Cruise boarded it, but it is now “somewhere between Italy and Croatia.” The film commission chief also noted that Cruise is expected to complete the shoot and to depart from Bari to leave Italy by the end of this week.
“We are proud that [the] Apulia [region] has been chosen as the operational base for this rather complex shoot,” Parente said. He hastened to add that the Apulia Film Commission liaised with Paramount Italia but only provided help with airport logistics for the “Mission: Impossible” shoot.
Cruise previously shot portions of “Mission: Impossible 7” in Italy, in both Venice and Rome. Most locations for “Mission: Impossible 8” have been kept under wraps. It has been reported that Paramount was not given permission to shoot the pic on the Arctic island of Svalbard off the coast of Norway.
Though Cruise has been busy with “Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two,” which is scheduled to be released in theaters in 2024, he took time out from the shoot to attend the 95th Annual Oscars Nominee Luncheon earlier this month.
Cruise has starred in and produced all the “Mission: Impossible” movies, which are based on the 1966 television series created by Bruce Geller.
