Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Produced by Tom Cruise, J. J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk, it is the sequel to Mission: Impossible III (2006) and is the fourth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. The film stars Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Paula Patton, with Michael Nyqvist, Vladimir Mashkov, Josh Holloway, Anil Kapoor, and Léa Seydoux in supporting roles. In the film, the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) is shut down after being publicly implicated in a bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team to go without resources or backup in a life-threatening effort to clear their names.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Brad Bird
Written by	Josh Appelbaum André Nemec
Based on	Mission: Impossible by Bruce Geller
Produced by	Tom Cruise J. J. Abrams Bryan Burk
Starring	Tom Cruise Jeremy Renner Simon Pegg Paula Patton
Cinematography	Robert Elswit
Edited by	Paul Hirsch
Music by	Michael Giacchino
Production companies	Paramount Pictures Skydance Productions Bad Robot TC Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release dates	December 7, 2011 (2011-12-07) (DIFF) December 16, 2011 (2011-12-16) (United States)
Running time	133 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$145 million
Box office	$694.7 million

Development for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol began in August 2009, when Appelbaum and Nemec were hired to write the screenplay (which contained rewrites by eventual series director and writer Christopher McQuarrie). Cruise's return was confirmed by March 2010 after Bird was announced to replace Abrams, who directed the predecessor. The film was officially titled in October 2010, after which, principal photography took place and lasted until March 2011, with filming locations including Bangalore, Mumbai, Budapest, Moscow, Dubai, and Canadian Motion Picture Park Studios in Vancouver. Like previous entries in the franchise, the cast completed most of their own stunts, while parts of the film were shot in IMAX.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol premiered in Dubai on December 7, 2011, and was released in IMAX and select large-format theaters on December 16, before being theatrically released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on December 21. It received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the action sequences, Cruise's performance, and Bird's direction. It grossed $694 million worldwide, becoming the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2011 as well as the highest-grossing film in the franchise and the highest-grossing film starring Cruise until the release of Mission: Impossible – Fallout in 2018. The film was followed by Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation in 2015.

IMF agent Trevor Hanaway is killed in Budapest by assassin Sabine Moreau, who steals Russian nuclear launch codes to sell to a man named "Cobalt". IMF agent Ethan Hunt is extracted from a Moscow prison, along with an asset named Bogdan, by Hanaway's handler and girlfriend Jane Carter and newly-promoted field agent Benji Dunn. The team is ordered to infiltrate the Kremlin for information on Cobalt. While they are inside, Cobalt blows the team's cover and they escape before a bomb destroys much of the Kremlin. Ethan is arrested by SVR agent Anatoly Sidorov and is blamed for the bombing.

Ethan escapes and meets with the IMF Secretary, who is in Moscow with analyst William Brandt. Brandt identifies Cobalt as Kurt Hendricks, a strategist seeking nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. They determine that Hendricks bombed the Kremlin to cover his theft of a Russian launch control device. The Secretary explains that the President has initiated "Ghost Protocol", disavowing the entire IMF. He secretly orders Ethan to continue pursuing Cobalt before being killed in an ambush by Sidorov's forces. Ethan escapes with Brandt and regroups with Jane and Benji. They plan to infiltrate a meeting between Hendricks' associate, Wistrom, and Moreau at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai where Wistrom will buy the stolen launch codes.

The IMF team plans to intercept the codes by faking two meetings: Ethan and Brandt posing as Wistrom and Leonid Lisenker, a cryptographer, to receive the codes from Moreau; one floor away, Jane poses as Moreau, passing counterfeit codes to the real Wistrom and Lisenker. They are forced to give the real codes when they discover that Lisenker redesigned Russia's nuclear security codes and can immediately authenticate them, relying on radioactive isotopes on the paper to track Wistrom afterwards. Completing the buy, Wistrom double-crosses and murders Lisenker. Moreau, having deduced that the buy is a setup, attempts to flee, but Jane intercepts her. When Moreau attacks Benji while trying to escape, an enraged Jane breaks a promise she made to Ethan earlier about fighting assets, and attacks Moreau. Brandt overhears the gunfire and rushes into the room, attempting to stop Jane from kicking Moreau out a window. However, Jane fails to listen and kicks Moreau out the window to her death. Sidorov attempts but fails to apprehend Ethan, who flees the Burj Khalifa and pursues Wistrom.

As Ethan and Wistrom run into a sandstorm, Wistrom reveals himself to be a masked Hendricks and escapes. Meanwhile, Jane and Benji confront Brandt over the advanced fighting skills that he displayed in the hotel. Brandt admits that he resigned as a field agent after failing to protect Julia Meade, Ethan's wife, from a hit. Ethan is taken by Bogdan to the Fog, an arms dealer, and learns that Hendricks is planning to launch missiles using an old Soviet military satellite that is now being used to broadcast television. The satellite is owned by an Indian media tycoon, Brij Nath. The Fog sells the same information to Sidorov. In Mumbai, Jane seduces Nath, then overpowers him to get the satellite's override code; the team pursues Hendricks and Wistrom to one of Nath's broadcast stations to stop him from sending the codes via the satellite.

Hendricks sends launch orders to a Russian nuclear submarine to fire a missile at San Francisco, while Wistrom sabotages the station system to prevent IMF interference. Benji, Brandt, and Jane attempt to repair the station while Ethan pursues Hendricks. Cornered by Ethan, Hendricks jumps to his death to place the launch device out of reach. After Benji kills Wistrom, Jane reconnects the system and Ethan retrieves the launch device to disable the missile moments before detonation. Sidorov arrives and realizes that the IMF was innocent of the Kremlin bombing.

In Seattle, Ethan assembles his team for another mission given by Luther Stickell. Brandt confesses to Ethan his failure to protect Julia, but Ethan reveals that she is alive and her death was staged to give her a new identity safely away from him, and to let him infiltrate the prison to find Bogdan. A relieved Brandt accepts his mission and agrees to become an agent again. Julia arrives and shares a smile with Ethan from afar, before he slips away and receives an IMF debriefing.

Despite Mission: Impossible III (2006) earning less than its predecessors at the box office, its critical reception was much better than that of its predecessors and Paramount Pictures was keen on developing a fourth Mission: Impossible film in the series. In August 2009, Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec were hired to write the film's screenplay. Because of other commitments, J. J. Abrams said that it was unlikely for him to return as director but made note that he would produce the film alongside Tom Cruise. By March 2010, director Brad Bird was in talks of directing the film with Cruise returning to star as Ethan Hunt.

In 2009, before his death, Peter Graves contacted J. J. Abrams, expressing interest in reprising his role as Jim Phelps.

The film was originally announced with the working title of Mission: Impossible 4 and code-named "Aries" during early production. By August 2010, title considerations did not include the Mission: Impossible 4 name, and thought was given to omitting the specific term "Mission: Impossible", which Variety compared to Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel film The Dark Knight. In late October 2010, the title was confirmed as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

Christopher McQuarrie, who later directed Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), did an uncredited rewrite of the screenplay, explaining that:

On Ghost Protocol I came in on the middle of the shoot to do a rewrite of the screenplay, though they had already started the movie. I had to communicate with the entire staff to determine what I could and couldn't change, what sets had been built or struck, what scenes I could or couldn't reshoot. I learned so much about production being right there. ... The script had these fantastic sequences in it but there was a mystery in it that was very complicated. What I did was about clarity. The mystery had to be made simpler. It's like reaching into a sock and pulling it inside out. It's still a sock, still all the same pieces, but all put together in a different order.

Filming

The film was partially shot with IMAX cameras, which made up approximately 30 minutes of the film's run time. Bird insisted that certain scenes of the film be shot in IMAX, as opposed to 3D, as he felt that the IMAX format offered the viewer more immersion due to its brighter, higher quality image, which is projected on a larger screen, without the need for specialised glasses. Bird also believed that the IMAX format would bring back "a level of showmanship" to the presentation of Hollywood films, which he believes the industry has lost due to its emphasis on screening films in multiplexes as opposed to grand theaters, and vetoing "first runs" in favor of wider initial releases.

Principal photography took place from October 2010 to March 19, 2011. Filming took place in Budapest, Mumbai, Prague, Moscow, Vancouver, Bangalore, Chennai, and Dubai. Although Cruise appears to be free solo climbing in the film with the help of special gloves, in reality, he was securely attached to the Burj Khalifa at all times by multiple cables. Industrial Light & Magic digitally erased the cables in post-production. Following Cruise's example, Patton and Seydoux also chose to forgo the use of stunt doubles for their fight scene at the Burj Khalifa where Carter exacts her revenge upon Moreau for Hanaway's death.

Many of the film's interior scenes were shot at Vancouver's Canadian Motion Picture Park Studios, including a key transition scene in a specially equipped IMF train car and the fight between Hunt and Hendricks in a Mumbai automated multi-level parking garage (which was constructed over a six-month period just for the film). The Vancouver Convention Centre was modified to double as downtown Bangalore. The film's opening Moscow prison escape scenes were shot on location in a real former prison near Prague.

Bird incorporated the trademark "A113", a reference to the classroom he attended while in the California Institute of the Arts, into the film on two separate occasions. The first is the design print on Hanaway's ring during the flashback sequence, and the second being when Hunt calls in for support and uses the drop callsign, Alpha 1–1–3.

The musical score for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was composed by Michael Giacchino, who also composed the music for the third film and collaborated with Bird on The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007). As in previous installments, the score incorporates Lalo Schifrin's themes from the original television series. "Lalo is an amazing jazz writer. You know you can't write a straight-up jazz score for a film like this but you can certainly hint at it here and there," said Giacchino, explaining the stylistic influence generated by Schifrin's history with the franchise. A soundtrack album was released by Varèse Sarabande on December 13, 2011.

In July 2011, a teaser trailer for Ghost Protocol was released illustrating new shots from the film, one of which being Tom Cruise scaling the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Moreover, prior to its release, the studio presented IMAX footage of the film to an invitation-only crowd of opinion makers and journalists at central London's BFI IMAX theater. One of the many scenes that were included was a chase scene in a Dubai desert sandstorm.

During November 2011, the Paramount released a Facebook game of the film in order to promote it. The new game allowed players to choose the roles of IMF agents and assemble teams to embark on a multiplayer journey. Players were also able to garner tickets to the film's U.S. premiere and a hometown screening of the film for 30 friends.

Theatrical

Following the world premiere in Dubai on December 7, 2011, the film was released in IMAX and other large-format theaters in the U.S. on December 16, 2011, with general release on December 21, 2011. This is the first film to use the new Paramount Pictures logo, with the a brand new fanfare composed by Michael Giacchino, who also composed the film, as part of the studio's 100th anniversary in 2012.

Home media

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital download on April 17, 2012. The home media releases, however, do not preserve the original IMAX imagery, and its aspect ratio is consistently cropped to 2.40:1 rather than switching to a 1.78:1 aspect ratio during the IMAX scenes. Prior Blu-ray Disc releases such as The Dark Knight, Tron: Legacy, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen have switched between 2.40:1 for regular scenes and 1.78:1 for IMAX scenes. The film was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray on June 26, 2018.

Box office

Ghost Protocol grossed $209.4 million in North America and $485.3 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $694.7 million. It is the second-highest-grossing film worldwide in the Mission: Impossible series, and the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2011. It is also the third-highest-grossing film worldwide starring Cruise, surpassing War of the Worlds from the top spot. It was the franchise's highest-grossing film and Cruise's biggest film at the time of release, before being surpassed by Mission: Impossible – Fallout seven years later.

In limited release at 425 locations in North America, it earned $12.8 million over its opening weekend. After five days of limited release, it expanded to 3,448 theaters on its sixth day and reached #1 at the box office with $8.92 million. The film reached the top stop at the box office in its second and third weekends with $29.6 million and $29.4 million, respectively. Though only 9% of the film's screenings were in IMAX theaters, they accounted for 23% of the film's box office.

Outside North America, it debuted to a $69.5 million in 42 markets representing approximately 70% of the marketplace. In the United Arab Emirates, it set an opening-weekend record of $2.4 million (since surpassed by Marvel's The Avengers). In two countries outside the U.S. in which filming took place, its opening weekend gross increased by multiples over the previous installment: in Russia, more than doubling, to $6.08 million and in India, more than quadrupling, to $4.0 million. It is the second-highest-grossing Mission: Impossible film outside North America. It topped the box office outside North America for three consecutive weekends (during December 2011) and five weekends in total (the other two in 2012). Its highest-grossing markets after North America are China ($102.5 million), Japan ($69.7 million), and South Korea ($51.1 million).

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol has an approval rating of 93% based on 253 reviews and an average rating of 7.7/10. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads: "Stylish, fast-paced, and loaded with gripping set pieces, the fourth Mission: Impossible is big-budget popcorn entertainment that really works." Metacritic assigned the film a score of 73 out of 100 based on 47 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 out of four stars, saying the film "is a terrific thriller with action sequences that function as a kind of action poetry." Stephen Whitty of The Star-Ledger wrote "The eye-candy—from high-tech gadgets to gorgeous people—has only been ratcheted up. And so has the excitement." He also gave the film 3.5 out of four stars. Giving the film three out of four stars, Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe said "In its way, the movie has old-Hollywood elegance. The scope and sets are vast, tall, and cavernous, but Bird scales down for spatial intimacy."

Philippa Hawker of The Sydney Morning Herald gave the film three stars out of five and said it is "ludicrously improbable, but also quite fun." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly opined that the movie "brims with scenes that are exciting and amazing at the same time; they're brought off with such casual aplomb that they're funny, too. ... Ghost Protocol is fast and explosive, but it's also a supremely clever sleight-of-hand thriller. Brad Bird, the animation wizard, ... showing an animator's miraculously precise use of visual space, has a playful, screw-tightening ingenuity all his own." Roger Moore of The Charlotte Observer gave the film three out of four stars; said "Brad Bird passes his audition for a career as a live-action director. And Ghost Protocol more than makes its bones as an argument for why Tom Cruise should continue in this role as long as his knees, and his nerves, hold up."

Accolades

Ghost Protocol was followed by Rogue Nation (2015). It achieved similar financial and critical success as Ghost Protocol. A sixth film, Fallout, was released in 2018, receiving critical praise and surpassing the box-office take of Ghost Protocol. Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) earned below $600 million and despite its similar reviews to Fallout is considered a commercial failure. The seventh film's untitled sequel is set to be released in 2025.