Norway says it's cool if Tom Cruise wants to come film a Mission: Impossible movie in it
Good news for anyone who’s ever wanted to see Tom Cruise just absolutely destroy his body while jumping onto a fjord: Norway has announced that the Mission: Impossible franchise has been given a special exemption to the country’s normal coronavirus quarantine procedures. Specifically, the film’s cast and crew won’t have to undergo an extensive (and expensive) 10-day quarantine period before being allowed to film the 7th Mission: Impossible film in a couple of weeks.
Announcing the exemption, Norwegian officials stressed the importance of continuing to promote the country as a filming and tourism destination (once tourism is not quite such a virally dangerous concept, of course). Plus, hey: Free* phone call with Tom Cruise! “It’s a gorgeous country, I can’t wait to get back there,” the actor said in his call with the country’s Minister Of Culture, expressing the sort of boundless enthusiasm for the nation that Tom Cruise normally reserves for sunshine, tax returns, and everything, ever.
(*Except for the millions the country is distributing in filming subsidies, obviously.)
This will be the franchise’s second trip to the Scandinavian nation; the Ways of Nor previously popped up in Mission: Impossible—Fallout, where their scenic cliffs stood in for some geography in the film’s fictitious version of India. Of course, the intervening two years have added all sorts of complications for these kinds of international shoots, especially since Norway has had one of the more restrictive lockdowns in place to attempt to quell the spread of COVID-19. (With notable success, too; the country has logged only 25o or so deaths from the disease, total, and the rate of new cases has slowed to a crawl since May.)
As such, Cruise won’t be allowed to just run around all over the place, jumping on their couches, etc. The entire M:I team will be separated from the Norweigian public entirely; they’ll also have to undergo COVID-19 testing every 48 hours.
The 7th Mission: Impossible movie—subtitle pending—is currently scheduled for a November 2021 release.