$290 Million Budget Was Not Enough for Tom Cruise and Director to Include Major Cameo of a Famous Actress in Mission Impossible 7

Tom Cruise has impressed the global audience with his enthralling work in the Mission: Impossible series. The franchise not only kept on racking huge profits, but it also continued to amplify the intensity of the stunts he performed which only benefitted them.

Also Read: “There was a stalemate going on”: Paramount CEO Seemingly Blames Tom Cruise for Mission Impossible 7 Failure After Studio Tried to Fire Actor Years Before

He has left our jaws dropped with his insane action sequences in the new film, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, but many might be shocked to know that it nearly starred famous actress, Julia Roberts for a flashback sequence.

Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible 7 Nearly Starred Julia Roberts

Also Read: Before Top Gun Fame, $33M Movie Writer Made Tom Cruise Eat Raw Eggs for ‘Nauseous’ Flick

Julia Roberts is a renowned name in the Hollywood industry who has numerous blockbusters in her portfolio. She was also considered to have a cameo in Tom Cruise‘s new film, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. But the film director, Christopher McQuarrie couldn’t afford to get her onboard.

Earlier this month, reports surfaced about the now scrapped opening sequence which involved a digitally de-aged version of Cruise’s Ethan Hunt which was set in the late 1980s. Throwing light on the particular segment, the director in an appearance on the Empire Spoiler Special podcast shared that the former was to join Cruise as his on-screen lover in the opening scene using a de-aged tool technique.

He shared,

“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 in that era… 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.'”

While this would have looked quite interesting since Roberts was the leading lady at the time, they eventually ended up scrapping the idea due to budgetary reasons.

Mission: Impossible 7’s Budget Became The Reason

Also Read: “She knew everything about him”: Katie Holmes’ Worst Nightmare Came True After Marrying Teenage Crush Tom Cruise as Mission Impossible Star Showed His True Face

While the initial challenge for him would have been to convince the popular actress for a cameo appearance, the major trouble lay in the film’s budget.

He mentioned,

“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 by the time we were done.”

Thinking that the de-aging of the trio for just a small sequence would have cost a whopping sum, it would have drastically affected the overall production budget. Hence, he eventually found it better to scrap the whole idea which also meant Roberts’s cameo was also put off.

Mission: Impossible 7 is running in theatres.

Source: Empire Spoilers Special