Mission Impossible 4: How Tom Cruise Did The Burj Khalifa Stunt

The image of Tom Cruise on Burj Khalifa in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is a defining moment for the franchise. As an actor with a growing list of extremely dangerous stunts throughout the years, scaling Burj Khalifa’s exterior in the fourth installment of Mission Impossible is one of Cruise’s most famous feats of courage, as it’s the world’s tallest building. Since then, Cruise has continued to defy death in multiple movies with stunts like Mission Impossible: Fallout‘s HALO jump. Still, Tom Cruise on Burj Khalifa, clinging to the windows of the skyscraper for dear life with only a pair of suction gloves, has become a landmark in the history of cinema.

Ghost Protocol takes Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt to Dubai in search of some nuclear launch codes after Kurt Hendricks, a.k.a. Cobalt (Michael Nyquist) steals a devastating weapon. As Mission Impossible fans already know, neither the franchise nor its star tends to take the easy route. So, Ethan Hunt must reach the 130th floor of the 2,722-foot skyscraper and ditch the elevator in favor of a pair of questionable suction gloves. Starting the climb 123 floors up is the easy part as he then rappels down the building and makes a jump of faith toward the same window he came out from. All in a day’s work for super-spy Ethan Hunt in one of his most dangerous Mission: Impossible moments.

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Tom Cruise’s Burj Khalifa Stunt Explained

To get Tom Cruise on Burj Khalifa, he had to be equipped with a harness that was carefully fixed to strategic points in the building, which required that the studio get special permits to drill on the floors and walls and break around 26 windows. Director Brad Bird – in his live-action directorial debut after The Incredibles and Ratatouille – consulted with multiple professionals from different areas like engineers, pro climbers, and stuntmen to ensure the safety of the shoot. He even considered using a dedicated stuntman, but, as he’s done for the majority of his career, Tom Cruise did his own stunts.

What Tom Cruise didn’t expect was that the tight harness would cut off his circulation, so the shoot had to be completed as efficiently and quickly as possible. Otherwise, his lower body would start feeling numb, which would make it harder for him to get to safety quickly. On top of that, the sequence was shot in IMAX, which meant that the cameras would run out of film extremely fast. The footage then had to be flown all the way back to Los Angeles, and Brad Bird couldn’t check if everything was ok until it was developed a few days later. The helicopters that were shooting also had a flight limit of 30 minutes at a time, so the crew had to make every take count.

The training for the Mission Impossible stunt that put Tom Cruise on Burj Khalifa was also extremely thorough and calculated. The crew built a wall of glass to simulate the exterior of the real building and had Tom Cruise climb up and down several times to get him familiarized with the discomfort of the harness and the physical toll of the climb. They went so far as to heat up the wall with artificial lights to simulate the temperature of the windows of the Burj Khalifa. It seems all of that preparation served its purpose, as Cruise pulled off the stunt like it was any other sequence.

Why Tom Cruise on Burj Khalifa Is The Best Mission Impossible Stunt

Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible franchise has seen him do plenty of incredible stunts, such as hanging off a plane, holding his breath for six minutes to perform an underwater heist, and conducting 109 HALO jumps to get the perfect shot. But of all these Tom Cruise movie stunts, the iconic Burj Khalifa sequence is the best proof of the actor’s dedication to his craft.

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It’s the most nail-biting sequence for audiences, and it was extremely dangerous, exhausting, and probably terrifying for Cruise himself. But the results are impressive; Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol has one of the best stunt scenes caught on camera. Having scaled the side of the world’s tallest building – for real – grants eternal franchise bragging rights for any self-respecting action series.

Was The Tom Cruise Burj Khalifa Stunt His Most Dangerous?

It might seem hard to top Tom Cruise on the Burj Khalifa but the actor claims to have done just that with one of his upcoming stunts. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 will feature what Cruise and filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie claim is the most dangerous Mission: Impossible stunt yet. While it is unclear how the stunt fits into the story of the upcoming sequel, it combines a number of dangerous aspects with Cruise driving a motorcycle off of a cliff and parachuting down to safety.

It is somewhat comical to even compare the Burj Khalifa stunt and this new motorcycle-parachute stunt as neither is something people should try at home. However, simply with the various elements involved in this new stunt, it is easy to see why it is considered the most dangerous of Cruise’s many wild ideas.

Cruise had to perfect several different elements including years of planning and training with motocross, base-jumping, and parachute canopy control before even introducing the added element of capturing it on camera. There is still a bit of a wait until Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 arrives and fans will see if Tom Cruise on the Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is still as impressive.

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