Tom Cruise and the price for taking risks when filming
The riskier the action scene, the more insurance money Tom Cruise receives. This number can be huge in blockbuster movies.
According to Screen Rant, Mission: Impossible 8 is being filmed in Europe. This is the last film in which Tom Cruise takes on the iconic role of Ethan Hunt. The work is expected to be released in May 2025, promising to bring many extremely risky segments.
While Paramount Pictures has never publicly disclosed the insurance policy applied to Cruise while participating in the Mission: Impossible series, insurance experts estimate the actor’s actual salary to be in the millions of dollars.
Tom Cruise’s million dollar insurance premium
Responding to Newsweek, Marc Federman – an expert at Epic insurance consulting & brokerage company based in San Francisco (USA) – said the average insurance level for a movie is equal to 3% of the total film production budget, which includes insurance for actors.
When considering Cruise’s case in the Mission Impossible series, or any other action movie in which the actor starred, Federman said Cruise’s insurance premium was even higher than the amount stipulated in the total 3 %.
If standard insurance does not agree to cover Cruise’s additional fees, the studio must pay this portion. According to The Things, because the actor helped the Mission: Impossible series earn billions of dollars, the studio did not prohibit him from performing dangerous stunts. They were willing to withdraw an additional million dollars in insurance money as well as let Cruise direct and perform the scenes.
According to Yahoo, the filming of Mission: Impossible – Fallout was paused for 9 weeks because Cruise broke his ankle after jumping between two buildings. At this time, production costs increased by millions of dollars and a large sum of money for Cruise was paid by insurance.
Mission: Impossible 7 has a production budget of 291 million USD. Based on Federman’s estimates, $9.7 million of that budget is spent on insurance. Newsweek revealed: “Even though the insurance money is divided into many different amounts, the majority still belongs to Tom. That number is up to several million dollars.”
In Dead Reckoning, viewers were heartbroken when they witnessed Cruise floating above a moving train, or driving a motorbike down a cliff more than 2,000 meters high in Norway. Cruise, in this scene, is likened to “a living rocket flying out of the car in a state of free fall and gracefully parachuting”.
Based on the images the studio revealed, Dead Reckoning Part Two contains even more extreme stunts. In particular, the new film will have scenes of Cruise performing underwater missions. Kate Winslet once set a record in Avatar: The Way of Water after holding her breath for 7 minutes and 15 seconds underwater. Cruise likely wants to break this record.
Mirror sources said that due to continuous delays in the filming process (the latest was due to problems with the submarine, causing production costs to increase by 23 million USD). Therefore, filming had to last several weeks, meaning the film’s budget increased significantly.
Dead Reckoning Part Two’s current budget is said to be nearly $400 million. And so, Cruise’s insurance money will also be a large number, higher than the previous part.
Don’t want to say goodbye to the adventure scene
At the age of 62, Tom Cruise maintains high-intensity exercises: 3/7 days of weight training, 5/7 days of applying exercises to improve cardiovascular health. He combines a healthy diet, no alcohol. However, the latest images show that Cruise’s appearance has clearly changed, no longer as strong as before.
According to The Things, when his appearance changes or there are signs of poor health, Cruise’s insurance costs will increase for the movies he participates in.
Dominique Butler from the insurance company Property and Casualty Insurance (USA) said on TheWrap: “The act of exploiting Tom’s danger will increase the overall insurance cost of a movie. This also gives rise to There are more problems and the crew must conduct a risk assessment. Please God don’t let him get hurt.”
Insurance companies’ concerns increased when Cruise announced that he would continue to act in action movies until he could no longer do so. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald in 2023, Cruise revealed that he will continue to offer dangerous stunts and follow in the footsteps of Harrison Ford. “Harrison Ford is a legend. I hope I can still continue acting at that age. I still have 20 years to catch up with him,” he expressed.
There are many reports about Cruise’s difficult work habits. The actor is said to be ready to chase away anyone who makes him uncomfortable. In 2022, E! News reported that an employee of Mission: Impossible 8 no longer has the opportunity to return to the set because he went against Cruise’s wishes.
David Ellison – CEO of Skydance Media, an American film and television production company headquartered at Paramount Studios – revealed that Cruise maintained a similar stubborn attitude when communicating with producers. The actor once asked the producer to fire an insurance company for refusing to provide insurance for his plan to hang people from the side of a skyscraper in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
According to Tri Thuc
