Motorcycle accident damages Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible 7 set

An expensive motorcycle stunt gone awry has halted production on Mission Impossible 7, reports suggest. The Tom Cruise-starrer has already had a difficult road to recovery, after the coronavirus pandemic put a stop to the shoot for several months. Production has resumed in the UK, which eased restrictions on filming recently.

The Daily Mail reports that a stuntman's bike caught fire at the Oxfordshire set of the film, leaving Cruise 'frustrated' about further delays. A video showed clouds of black smoke emanating from the alleged accident site. No one was hurt.

The stunt took six weeks to plan and the set cost a reported $2.6 million. "This has been a massive challenge to stage and has cost a fortune, not to mention weeks and weeks of construction," the report quoted a source as saying. "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. Fortunately, nobody was hurt but it's a total catastrophe, not to mention extremely expensive for all concerned. Tom is very frustrated. Nobody wants more delays."

Cruise was reportedly filming a separate scene nearby. The seventh instalment in the franchise was initially set to hit the theatres on July 23, 2021, but will now debut on November 19, 2021. Meanwhile, Mission: Impossible 8, originally due in theatres on August 5, 2022, will hit the big screens on November 4, 2022, reported Variety.

Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 were supposed to be filmed back-to-back, under the direction of Christopher McQuarrie, who previously helmed the fifth and sixth instalments in the series, to great critical and box office success.