Trivia for
Mission: Impossible III (2006) More at IMDbPro »

• Carrie-Anne Moss was offered a role after Tom Cruise was impressed with her work in Suspect Zero (2004), which Cruise produced. When Joe Carnahan left the project, and J.J. Abrams took the reigns, her character was dropped from the film entirely.
  
  
• Kelly Brook was at one point slated to appear.
  
  
• David Fincher was first slated to direct the film but dropped out to produce Lords of Dogtown (2005), which he also dropped out of directing. The basic storyline of the version he was working on dealt with black market trade of body parts in Africa.
  
  
• While the producers signed on J.J. Abrams as director in August 2004 after Joe Carnahan's departure, the film was abruptly delayed for at least a year due to Tom Cruise's commitment to the abruptly green-lit War of the Worlds (2005). The production was delayed until Summer 2005, causing the film to be released in 2006. Abrams was hired after Cruise saw episodes of the Abrams series "Alias" (2001) on DVD and was impressed.
  
  
• Kenneth Branagh was cast as the villain, but because of shooting-delays he had to drop out to begin work on As You Like It (2006).
  
  
• Studio filming took place at sound stages at the Paramount Studios lot, which for the previous 18 years had been used solely for episodes of Star Trek.
  
  
• At one point, Ricky Gervais was cast in the film as an ally to Ethan Hunt. But due to various production and casting changes, Gervais had to pull out of the film and was replaced by Simon Pegg.
  
  
• In early May 2004, it was reported that Tom Cruise (in his role as a producer) had requested of the German government that filming be allowed in the 40-metre glass dome of the German Parliament building, the Reichstag. He had earlier visited the Foster & Partners-designed building and been very impressed. His request was denied, however, by Parliament President Wolfgang Thierse. "The building is not available as a film location and we refuse point blank every request to use it as such," a spokesman said.
  
  
• The film's former director Joe Carnahan was offered the position of director after Tom Cruise was impressed by his work on Narc (2002), which Cruise also executive produced. Carnahan stepped down from the position of director because of creative differences only a month before filming was originally due to begin in August of 2004. His departure delayed the film by a year, while a new director was being sought after. In this time, Cruise went on to film War of the Worlds (2005) which had its originally intended 2006 release fast-tracked by a whole year.
  
  
• Thandie Newton was offered the chance to reprise the role of Nyah Nordoff Hall, but turned it down to concentrate on spending time with her family. Her role in the story was later changed to a new character named Leah Quint (played by Carrie-Anne Moss) but when J.J. Abrams took over directing the project, the character was totally scrapped from the story.
  
  
• Rachel McAdams turned down Michelle Monaghan's role.
  
  
• There are 16 explosions in this movie.
  
  
• To promote the film, Paramount rigged 4,500 randomly selected Los Angeles Times vending boxes with digital audio players which would play the theme song when the door was opened. The audio players did not always stay concealed, however, and in many cases came loose and fell on top of the stack of newspapers in plain view, with the result that they were widely mistaken for bombs. Police bomb squads detonated a number of the vending boxes and even temporarily shut down a veterans' hospital in response to the apparent "threat". Despite these problems, Paramount and The LA Times opted to leave the audio players in the boxes until two days after the movie's opening.
  
  
• At 43 minutes into the film, agent Hunt can be seen using the OQO personal computer as his device, which according to Guinness World Records is the smallest fully functional PC.
  
  
• Besides Ethan Hunt, Luther Stickel (Ving Rhames) is the only character to appear in all three films.
  
  
• Dean Georgaris and Frank Darabont both worked on the screenplay in the early stages of production.
  
  
• The scenic rural Chinese village at the end of the film is not located in Shanghai as suggested but is actually the ancient town of Xitang in the Zhejiang Province, located approximately 90km away. The night scenes involving skyscrapers were actually shot in Shanghai, however.
  
  
• In the scene where agent Hunt makes his spectacular leap off a Shanghai skyscraper, he is on the east side of the Huangpu River that runs through the middle of the city. He ends up landing on the west side of the river, near Yanan Highway, which is about 2 km away from the building he'd just jumped off.
  
  
• This film marked Paramount's first foray into digital exhibition. They were the last studio to release a digital print to theaters.
  
  
• This had the fourth widest opening in history, commandeering 4,054 cinema screens (170 of which were digital).
  
  
• After initially upsetting the Chinese government over its seemingly uncomplimentary depiction of life in Shanghai, the censors finally allowed the film to be shown in China.
  
  
• As the production could do nothing about inquisitive crowds watching them while they were filming in Rome, they actually set up a phony second unit a little further away, hired several girls in bikinis and several older women dressed as nuns and pretended to be filming takes for the film, while the main unit got on with their business largely undisturbed.
  
  
• The Caserta Palace, Italy doubled up for the Vatican's interiors.
  
  
• The outdoor scenes near the end of the movie were shot on location in an actual Chinese village with the residents serving as extras. A bilingual crew member used a bullhorn to instruct them prior to filming each scene.
  
  
• The Lamborghini that was blown up had no engine.
  
  
• Some of the scenes were shot in downtown Richmond, Virginia. The crew and cast were directed to the set of "Heyday". This diversionary title was posted everywhere downtown so as to distract onlookers and tourists from the movie set.
  
  
• Cameo: [Daniel Mindel] The film's cinematographer appears as a doctor talking to Julia in the hospital.
  
  
• During the credits, one of the organizations which the producers of the film wish to thank is the Hanso Foundation, a group tied to J.J. Abrams' television series, "Lost" (2004).
  
  
• Ethan Hunt makes references to Lake Wanaka. Lake Wanaka is a lake in the South Island of New Zealand, which Tom Cruise visited while in New Zealand filming The Last Samurai (2003). He liked the place so much that he included it in this film.
  
  
• Scarlett Johansson was cast in the film early on but pulled out of the project and her role eventually went to Keri Russell.
  
  
• Philip Seymour Hoffman's character's name, Owen Davian, is an in-joke and a nod to his long-time manager, Davien Littlefield.
  
  
• Cameo: [Michael Kehoe] craft service crew member appears as Mike the hospital employee when Ethan enters the hospital he's in search for his wife and heads for the front desk where Mike is seated.
  
  
• Visible body count: 26
  
  
• With a budget of $185 million, this is the most expensive movie ever undertaken by a first-time feature film director.
  
  
• The two main actresses, Michelle Monaghan and Keri Russell, share the birthday: 23 March 1976.
  
  
• The assistant directors on both units, 'Mathew Dunne' and Tommy Gormley, had characters named after them: "Benjimin Dunne" and "Declan Gormley" respectively.
  
  
• Katie Holmes and Jessica Alba were considered for the lead female role.
  
  
• Tom Cruise did the vast majority of his own stunts in this film.
  
  
• Tom Cruise's cousin, William Mapother, is also an actor and is best known for playing a character named Ethan. He plays Ethan Rom on "Lost" (2004), which was created by J.J. Abrams, the director of this film.
  
  
• The second film of 2006 to pass the $100,000,000 mark at the box office. Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) was the first.
  
  
• Stuntman Steven Scott Wheatley sued Paramount and Tom Cruise's production company for gross negligence after the pyrotechnics in a stunt he was involved in went wrong and he was engulfed in a ball of flame. Wheatley suffered burns over 60% of his body.
  
  
• For the three city-wide premieres in New York, Tom Cruise was driven from location to location on the top of a fire engine, by helicopter, motorbike, car and the subway system, where he had an entire subway train all to himself. It was rented for an estimated $12,000.
  
  
• Keri Russell trained for three months in preparation for her big action scenes.
  
  
• Joe Carnahan worked on the film for a total of 15 months before quitting over creative differences with the studio bosses. He even filmed the moment when he quit, as he figured that it signified the end of his Hollywood career. That was not to be the case, however. He came back the following year with the cult hit Smokin' Aces (2006),
  
  
• It's coincidence that one of the disguises that Tom Cruise adopts in the film is that of a priest. In real life, Cruise briefly studied to become a priest before he got the acting bug.
  
  
• Ethan is suspended by a cable while infiltrating the Shanghai building to get the Rabbit's Foot. See also Mission: Impossible (1996) and Mission: Impossible II (2000).
  
  
• Cameo: [Buster Reeves] [Fight Arranger] appears as the gunman who is shot out the window.
  
  
• One of the five percussionists in the orchestra which did the film's score was Emil Richards, who 30 years ago played bongos on the original "Mission: Impossible" (1966) theme.
  
  
• At the party, when Ethan answers the phone and gets the call about a free trip to Mexico, the voice on the other line is that of director J.J. Abrams.
  
  
• Phil Alden Robinson was one of the finalists for the director's job.
  
  
• This would be the last Tom Cruise / Paula Wagner film distributed by Paramount. After the release, Paramount owner Sumner Redstone decided not to renew their distribution rights. Apparently, Redstone was disgusted by Cruise's recent antics, particularly his appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" (1986). Following that, Cruise and his partner Wagner had resurrected the United Artists company, which had closed a few years previously.
  
  
• The doctor hands extracting the capsule from Agent Farris' head at the IMF headquarters belong to director J.J. Abrams.
  
  
• The postcard that Agent Farris sent Ethan Hunt from Berlin is addressed to H. Kelvin. Harry Kelvin was J.J. Abrams’ grandfather.
  
  
• While filming on location in Italy, director J.J. Abrams set up a fake shooting location about a block and a half away from the real shooting location in order to distract the crowds so they would not get in the way of filming some of the real scenes. According to Abrams, the fake scene included three girls in bikini and three nuns.
  
  
• Maggie Q had to learn how to drive for the movie, she didn't know how to before. It is revealed in the DVD extras that while driving during the shoot, the heel of her shoe got stuck on the accelerator, leading her car to crash (lightly) into another parked car.
  
  
• In the original script of the opening scene, Brownway was supposed to do the "counting" but director J.J. Abrams realized it would be much more dramatic if it was done by Owen Davien instead.
  
  
• The interior of Ethan Hunt's house was based on 'JJ Abrams''s family's home.
  
  
• With its $150,000,000 budget, this is the most expensive film ever made by a first time director.
  
  
• Director Cameo: [J.J. Abrams] The director can be seen in the hospital when Ethan is looking for his wife
  
  

• SPOILER: When Ethan wakes up tied to the chair and Brownway shoots the charge up his nose, the hand seen holding the gun to Tom Cruise's nose is not Eddie Marsan's, but Cruise's own hand. The same goes later when Musgrave puts the phone to Ethan's ear, then Ethan bites Musgrave's hand. The hand that Cruise bit was not Billy Crudup's, but again was his own hand.
  
  
• SPOILER: The scene near the end where Billy Crudup's character joins Ethan Hunt after the apparent murder of his wife was rewritten on the morning it was shot. Crudup was reading his lines off cue cards throughout it.
  
  

Related Links