New ‘Mission: Impossible’ Nearly Featured De-Aged Julia Roberts

While it might not have been as big a box office success as ‘Barbie’ or ‘Oppenheimer’, plenty of people have been to see ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’. And if you’re among them, chances are you’ll have seen an early scene set years before Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is part of the Impossible Mission Force.

The scene takes place largely in shadow, because while writer/director Christopher McQuarrie considered using the sort of de-aging technology as employed by movies such as ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ he ultimately rejected the idea, thinking it would be distracting.

But that wasn’t the full extent of what McQuarrie originally planned. Sitting down to talk at length about the movie on the Empire Podcast Spoiler Special for ‘Dead Reckoning’, he revealed that the sequence –– and de-aging –– was going to go further.

Related Article: Director Christopher McQuarrie Talks ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’

McQuarrie’s Idea

Christopher McQuarrie, writer and director of ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.’

Originally, McQuarrie had thought to include another huge superstar besides Cruise in the sequence.

Here’s what McQuarrie said of the initial idea:

“I said, ‘OK, if I were doing this sequence, it would be Tom in, say, 1989. It would be Tony Scott’s ‘Mission: Impossible.’ That’s who would have been directing the movie before Brian De Palma, you know, in that era. We looked at ‘Days of Thunder’ and we looked at the style of it, and we started thinking what would it look like if Tony Scott had shot this, and who would it have been? I looked back at who was the ingenue, who was the breakout star in 1989? And right around then was ‘Mystic Pizza’. And I was like, ‘Oh my God. Julia Roberts, a then-pre-‘Pretty Woman‘ Julia Roberts, as this young woman.’”

Ultimately, he decided that it didn’t make sense for the budget:

“The only way I could have seen doing the sequence justice [using de-aging] was to somehow convince Julia Roberts to come in and be this small role at the beginning of this story. And of course, as you’re conceptually going through it, you’re like, ‘Now all anybody’s going to be doing is thinking about the de-aging of Julia Roberts, and Esai (Morales) and Tom, and Henry Czerny.’ I got the bill for de-aging those people before their salaries were even factored into it. And if you put two of them in a shot together, or three of them in a shot together, it would have been as expensive as the train [sequence that ends the movie] by the time we were done. It was so… the force multiplier of — and the way we shoot scenes, and the fluidity, and the camera movement. And of course, that wouldn’t be the style of the movie in 1989. That wouldn’t make sense if you were shooting an ’89 ‘Mission’ like a 2023 ‘Mission.’”

Given how expensive ‘Dead Reckoning’ already was given covid complications and delays in shooting, you can see why he might have been less willing to spend that money.

‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ is in theaters now.

(L to R) Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie on the set of ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

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‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ is produced by Paramount, Skydance Media, New Republic Pictures, and TC Productions. The movie is scheduled to release in theaters on July 12th, 2023.