Mission: Impossible director reveals a deleted scene from Final Reckoning’s dangerous submarine sequence with Tom Cruise and explains why it didn’t make it into the film: "It just didn't work"

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The scene was tense enough without it

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
(Image credit: Paramount)

A deleted scene from Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning has been revealed, and director Christopher McQuarrie says the intense footage was ultimately cut from the film because they "didn't need it."

"We'd become so efficient shooting underwater [that] we were able to get extra material of Tom trying to get into the submarine, having difficulty accessing it, in case later we wanted to create a sense of pressure," McQuarrie says in the clip (via IGN). "And again, Tom was checking his dive computer, the audience saw this ticking clock... something that's very common in Mission: Impossible. But in this movie, it just didn't work."

The sequence was shot in an 8.5 million liter water tank on a rotating gimbal, and required Tom Cruise to wear a special suit and mask – the kind of heavy scuba gear made for deep sea diving expeditions and retrievals. Cruise could only wear the suit for 10 minutes at a time before becoming at risk of hypoxia.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning does not yet have a streaming release date, but will be available on VOD beginning August 19. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2025 and beyond.

Lauren Milici
Lauren Milici
Senior Entertainment Writer

Lauren Milici is a Senior Entertainment Writer for GamesRadar+ based in New York City. She previously reported on breaking news for The Independent's Indy100 and created TV and film listicles for Ranker. Her work has been published in Fandom, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Vulture, PopSugar, Fangoria, and more.

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