Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Set for Global Release This May

At a Cannes master-class, director Christopher McQuarrie revealed the moment Tom Cruise nearly blacked out while strapped to the wing of a biplane over Africa for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. The 62-year-old star had spent 22 breath-stealing minutes outside the cockpit—ten beyond safety limits—while headwinds blasted him at 140 mph. With only six minutes of fuel left and no confirming hand signal in sight, the crew feared the daredevil’s legendary luck had finally run out.

Then Cruise twitched, dragged himself up, and shoved his head into the cockpit to gulp precious oxygen before climbing inside to land the aircraft—eliciting rapturous applause from the Cannes audience and a sheepish smile from the actor. It wasn’t the production’s only white-knuckle moment: another set piece put Cruise inside a 1,000-ton rotating steel gimbal that simulated a flooded Russian sub, an apparatus McQuarrie said “couldn’t be tested” until the cameras rolled.

Clocking in at roughly $400 million, the eighth entry in the franchise opens this weekend in India, Australia, and South Korea, reaching Europe and the Middle East on May 21 and North America on May 23. Cruise calls it “the culmination of three decades of work,” yet shrugs off danger as just “an emotion”—one he clearly finds addictive. Fans will soon see whether Ethan Hunt’s latest impossible mission is truly his last, or merely another thrilling chapter in a saga that refuses to quit.