Hollywood has spent an exorbitant amount of money ‘chasing COVID’ by making safety protocols virtually impossible to achieve. Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible 7” cost an insane $290 million to produce.
Even with the production tax incentives, the budget was “tens of millions more than the studio and its financial partner expected to have to shell out, multiple insiders with knowledge of the production told Variety.”
2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” only cost $190 to put into perspective the novel coronavirus’ extra costs. Insiders said filming the movie, which was scheduled to begin in Venice in February of 2020, had to stop and start production seven different times due to the pandemic.
Public health restrictions and further outbreaks of the virus added unanticipated costs, said the sources, because the studio has had to keep crew and cast members employed and housed during long lag times and quarantine periods. There are also costs associated with having to shut down streets and canals in major cities, such as Rome and Venice, only to scrap those plans and reschedule them.
Though the film’s backers tried to be nimble, the complexity of mounting an international production, one that hopscotched across a half-dozen countries including Poland and the United Arab Emirates, meant that no matter how hard the “Mission: Impossible” team tried, it couldn’t outrun a pandemic that knows no borders. Further complicating matters were global supply chain issues, other insiders added, which brought unforeseen costs via lumber and additional materials.