Mission Impossible 7 Editor Reveals Alternate Ending With Hayley Atwell

An alternative montage that could well have radically changed the final act…

Warning, this article contains spoilers regarding Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 !

In an interview with Variety, the Oscar-winning editor of the seventh installment of Impossible mission, Eddie Hamiltonrevealed the existence of an alternate ending.

Fans have known this since July 12: in the original ending of Dead Reckoning Part OneGrace (performed by Hayley Atwell) sets out on a path to redemption by teaming up with Ethan and the IMF team to piece together the full key, unlocking the source code for the Entity, the film’s AI program. The alternative scene takes a slightly more dramatic turn: the heroine would have finally decided to betray Ethan and his colleagues… She would then have reassured the team, including Hunt, by boarding the train alone to “try to get money from the buyer and maybe negotiate to get out of the situation she is in“.

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A narrative possibility which, according to the director, would Christopher McQuarriegave star stuntman and actor Tom Cruise a few cold sweats…

“How we ended the movie was a big, big mystery to us. It kept Tom awake throughout production. He kept coming up to us and telling us that the ending shouldn’t be a cliffhanger, that it should be satisfying. The audience should have a sense of accomplishment.”McQuarrie told Total Film magazine, of the action sequence on the train.

Hamilton didn’t hesitate to show scenes to get opinions… even the first mock-up of the film, when it lasted 4 hours (including 1h30 for the train scene) and the sound effects had not been added. The alternative scene would then not have resonated with the test audience. And like “the end is always the beginning of other things“, we can now expect to see Grace become a valuable ally in the next Mission: Impossible 8scheduled for June 2024.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 is currently in theaters.

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