Filming has stopped again for Mission: Impossible 7 due to an accident that occurred during a motorbike stunt sequence in Oxfordshire. This latest halt comes soon after production had resumed after it was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a source speaking about the stunt to The Sun, "the idea was for the stuntman to land on some huge pillows filled with card to cushion the blow while the bike safely crashed to the ground a few metres away. Unfortunately it was miscalculated. The heat and the friction of the tyres meant that when the bike crashed, the cardboard padding sparked and went up in flames." The resulting fire from the accident caused a nearby RAF airfield to close, but thankfully no one was injured.
Production for the latest installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise was already halted back in February when COVID-19 was starting to take hold in the film's location of Italy. Originally shooting was meant to resume in September but started up again a month earlier. The failed stunt took several weeks to prepare and the set has since been closed.
This accident comes after director Christopher McQuarrie made a statement on reports he was planning to blow up a 111-year-old Polish bridge for the film. In a statement made to Empire magazine, McQuarrie explained, "It was understood that we could only destroy the already unsafe portions of the bridge that needed to be rebuilt, and not the original stone pilings at either end, upon which a new bridge could one day be constructed." McQuarrie then went on to blame an unnamed individual for spreading misinformation saying "after harassing members of our production publicly and anonymously on social media, as well as privately, this individual misrepresented our intentions and concealed their personal reasons for wanting to penalize us. [...]In short, this individual manipulated the emotional response of the people in a move that has now compromised our ambitions to bring our production to Poland."
Mission: Impossible 7 is expected to premiere in November 2021 with the 8th installment expected in 2022.
Source: NME