Tom Cruise Stunts Come at a Mind-Blowing Insurance Price

The highly anticipated seventh installment of the Tom Cruise-led action franchise, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, has just hit US theaters and amassed almost $70 million already.

There's no doubt that the movie will perform well financially, covering the production budget of $291 million and pushing the film series' $3.5-billion earnings closer to the $5 billion bar.

Tom Cruise has starred in the franchise since its inception in 1996, portraying Mission: Impossible's protagonist Ethan Hunt, a highly skilled secret agent who carries out missions to save the world. For many viewers, the intense stunts that the actor performs in the films are the biggest highlight of the whole series, and as it turns out, the cost of those stunts is also quite impressive.

Although the Mission:Impossible lead star comes across as a daredevil with a penchant for dangerous roles, Tom Cruise isn't reckless altogether. The actor's life and health on set are always insured, and this practice is indeed pricey. Well, in the case of Cruise and his life-threatening stunts, the cost is simply mind-blowing.

According to insurance brokers specializing in movie production, insurance normally costs studios around 3% of the budget, which covers five to eight lead actors whose dismissal due to an injury would incur large expenses and hinder the production. So for the most recent installment of Mission: Impossible, insurance most likely equaled some $9 million (at the very least).

At the same time, insurance expenses may increase due to stunts, which the movie has plenty of. According to Marc Federman, a professional insurance broker, the producers of Mission: Impossible probably paid $9.7 million in insurance fees for Dead Reckoning Part One, all because of the danger that Cruise's stunts pose to his health.

'The premium can be surcharged significantly due to stunts,' the insurance broker told Newsweek. 'The additional premium is determined after a thorough review of anticipated stunts and steps required to be taken to minimize the hazardous stunts being contemplated.'

Certainly, this money wouldn't be spent on Tom Cruise's insurance exclusively. However, there is no denial that the movie's main star, producer and stuntman is very precious to Paramount Pictures — after all, Cruise's face does a fair deal of marketing for the whole franchise. Consequently, it's reasonable to assume that a good bulk of the $9.7 million was spent on his insurance.

Hopefully, the studio will recoup its investments as Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has just started showing in theaters, and the box-office predictions for the movie are quite promising.

Source: Newsweek.