Tom Cruise's New Mission Impossible: Fallout Stunt Required Oxygen Tanks And Lightning

When it comes to stunts, Tom Cruise doesn't mess around--especially where the Mission Impossible movie franchise is involved. Time and again, Cruise has put his own safety on the line to make sure the crazy things his character does are as realistic as possible--GameSpot has even documented his many crazy acts.

For his latest stunt, though, Cruise might be outdoing even himself. The star revealed some new footage for the upcoming Mission Impossible: Fallout at the CinemaCon exhibition in Las Vegas, which called for him to go skydiving. This wasn't your ron-of-the-mill jump out of a plane, though.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cruise took the leap from so high that it required oxygen tanks simply to breathe on the way down. "It took a year to figure this sequence out," Cruise explained to the movie theater exhibitors and press in attendance. This was what's called a high altitude-low opening jump, which sees the skydiver jumping from 25,000-35,000 feet, before deploying their parachute as low to the ground as possible.

In this particular scene, Cruise's character Ethan Hunt, and the movie's villain played by Henry Cavill, skydive into a lightning storm and are actually struck by the electricity--which renders Cavill's August Walker unconscious. It's then up to Hunt to not only catch but resuscitate him as they plummet toward the Earth. The cast and crew were able to pull the stunt off in three takes, which will be stitched together into a single sequence.

It sounds like a thrilling scene, to be sure. It should fit in nicely with the clips shown thus far of Cruise doing crazy helicopter tricks, hanging off the side of another chopper, and breaking his ankle while jumping between buildings.

You might be wondering, with so much on tap, what isn't Cruise willing to do? "One of the requests that Tom made was that he not catch on fire," director Christopher McQuarrie reveals. That seems like a fair thing to ask. Who wants to be set on fire?

Mission Impossible: Fallout hits theaters on July 27.