Interesting
Deadline article interviewing all five of the M:I film franchise's directors:
On the eve of ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’s screening at the Cannes Film Festival, all five of the franchise’s directors reminisce.
deadline.com
Some tidbits:
Brian DePalma got the gig when Sydney Pollack pulled out. Pollack had previously worked with Tom Cruise on the John Grisham thriller
The Firm, so I guess that's why he was involved. Pollack had also directed the spy thriller
Three Days of the Condor, though his career included diverse films such as
Tootsie and
Out of Africa. It would've been interesting to see what he would've done with M:I.
DePalma had no familiarity with the original series. Killing off the team to center on Ethan Hunt was DePalma's idea, but he distances himself from the decision to make Jim Phelps a traitor. He also takes credit for convincing Cruise he could do his own stunts.
DePalma turned down MI2 because he didn't want to do a heavy action film and had no interest in sequels. Cruise wanted each film to have a distinct style and brought in John Woo because he'd loved
Face/Off. Woo tried to present Ethan as a Cary Grant type.
David Fincher and Joe Carnahan were considered for MI3 before J.J. Abrams was chosen. The original script, which Cruise tossed out, had "attachments" (whatever that means) from Kenneth Branagh, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Scarlett Johansson. Abrams, unlike DePalma, was a big fan of the original series, which was an obvious inspiration for
Alias. (Ironic, then, that I feel MI3 is very unlike the original series beyond a token caper sequence or two, and feels much more like
Alias: The Movie.)
Brad Bird was responsible for some of the coolest parts of
Ghost Protocol, like having the tech break down and making it more of an ensemble story rather than Ethan-centric. Some of the crew didn't respect him as an animation director, but Cruise understood that anyone who could handle directing animation could handle live-action (animation is probably harder) and stood up for him.
Christopher McQuarrie, with whom Cruise had developed a working relationship starting on
Valkyrie, did uncredited script work on
Ghost Protocol before Cruise decided to make him the regular director, scrapping the "make each film different" approach. I guess I can understand him wanting to stick with a trusted partner, but I regret the loss of the individuality the first four films had (even though the results were hit-or-miss).
All the directors praise Cruise for how dedicated and thorough he is at his work. Woo said that he had his desk piled with research on bioweapons for MI2 so he'd know his stuff, which strikes me as caring far more about credibility than the writers or director did on that film.
