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While appearing on The Pat McAfee Show this week to promote the release of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Tom Cruise detailed how he basically tricked Hollywood’s movie studios into resuming production in the wake of 2020.
The topic was broached after Pat McAfee asked Tom Cruise about Steven Spielberg previously crediting him with saving the movie business, which Cruise absolutely did by A) not relenting and letting Top Gun: Maverick debut on a streaming service and B) proving that productions could get back up and running on Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.
According to Cruise, what he essentially did was play studios interests against each other.
“This is what I really did: I called one studio, and I was like, ‘You guys shooting?’ They said we can’t, we’re all shut down. I said, ‘You know, we’re shooting our movies. We’re making our movies,'” Cruised explained to McAfee.
“So I call back a week later, and was like, ‘How’s it going?’ They say, ‘Oh yeah, we’re shooting our films.’ I said, ‘Cause we’re coming out next summer! We’re on this date, I hope you’re not on this date.’ They’re like, ‘Well, we’re making our movie, we’re coming out next summer.’ Then I called the studio I was working with and said, ‘Look — all there guys are making movies! We’ve got to make movies.'”
“This is what I really did..
I told everybody that we were still making movies..
We’ve gotta keep making movies..
We had to be relentless about it but we made sure that people still had jobs” ~ @TomCruise #PMSLive https://t.co/vIIhiYEPbr pic.twitter.com/K7bI5cXGlV
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) May 21, 2025
In addition to the iconic Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning also stars Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Pom Klementieff, Esai Morales, Henry Czerny, Nick Offerman, Holt McCallany, Angela Bassett, Tramell Tillman, Hannah Waddingham, and Janet McTeer.
Check out the official trailer for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning below.