Summary

  • Tom Cruise did not take over editing Mission: Impossible 2, but he did try to exert influence over the cutting process.
  • Cruise wanted to put a camera in the cutting room to see the work being done, but the team did not allow him to do so.
  • Director John Woo insisted on cutting the film without any interference and Cruise ultimately understood and respected his decision.

Mission: Impossible franchise would continue to live on (as it does to this day).

Woo is now back himself with Silent Night, his first American movie in 20 years, but a recent interview saw the conversation turning to his experience on Mission: Impossible 2, and rumors that Cruise overhauled the movie in editing. According to Woo, it’s not accurate that Cruise locked him out of the editing room, though the star did try to exert his influence over the cutting process, in a completely bizarre and very Cruise way. Check out Woo’s remarks below (via Rolling Stone):

Actually, he couldn’t do that. But after the movie finished, he went to Australia for vacation and then he wanted to put a camera in the cutting room to see our work because he wanted to know what we were doing, and we didn’t allow him to do that. He changed his mind. I said I needed to cut my film without any interference, and he understood.

John Woo's Style Made Mission: Impossible 2 a Distinctive Entry In the Series

Tom Cruise holding onto a cliff as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible 2.

A legend of Hong Kong action cinema thanks to films like The Killer and Bullet in the Head, Woo brought his signature over-the-top style to Hollywood in the 1990s through movies like Hard Target, Broken Arrow and the classic Face/Off. His action background made Woo, at least on the surface, a solid choice to helm the second Mission: Impossible movie, but the director's auteurist approach may have caused concerns for Cruise, who is known for exerting a lot of control over his productions.

John Woo's latest film Silent Night is genuinely silent, as it features no dialog.

Mission: Impossible 2, to this day, remains a somewhat divisive entry in the long-running action series, thanks in large part to Woo, whose stylistic flourishes are not to everyone’s taste. The film may not work for all fans of the franchise, but the Woo touch does make the movie stand out from all the other Mission: Impossible films. That Cruise would try to install a camera in the editing room to supervise Woo from afar is bizarre, but thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and the filmmaker was allowed to make the movie his way.

Source: Rolling Stone