Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is an action-packed thrill ride, filled with mind-boggling stunts, rich characters, the coolest gadgets and stunning locations. Filmed over a five month period from October 2010 to March 2011, production took the film from Los Angeles to Moscow, Prague, Dubai, Mumbai, and Vancouver.
“These are globe-trotting movies,” says Brad Bird of the Mission: Impossible series. “That’s part of their appeal.” Adds executive producer Jeffrey Chernov, “Looking for locations for Ghost Protocol was always about finding the most exotic places. That was something that was really important for . What we’re out to do is really deliver entertainment in the most exotic locales.”
Production began in Prague in October 2010. “I think Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world,” says Bird. The prison where they filmed was actually the long-closed Mladá Boleslav Prison, northeast of Prague. “It was super creepy to walk through on our initial scout – thinking it was a real prison where people, albeit criminals, had been interned,” recalls André Nemec. The facility was spruced up by production designer Jim Bissell for the three-day shoot. “It was a very old building, but we needed to go in and make it look hi-tech, something Jim melded together very well,” notes Bird.
The spectacular explosion of Red Square in Moscow and a portion of The Kremlin was actually created using background plate photography of the actual Red Square, shot by Oscar® –winning visual effects supervisor John Knoll (“Star Wars,” “Avatar”). “We planned out the geography of where everybody is and when, and then shot these hi-resolution panoramas and running shots of the square,” Knoll explains. Those shots were then combined with combined with footage of Cruise and other cast members being hurled through the air, filmed in Vancouver at Canadian Motion Picture Park, where the production shot on as many as six stages and served as the film’s North American production base.
One of the most magnificent locations used in the film is the city of Dubai, located in the United Arab Emirates – not only used for its striking beauty, but also as the backdrop for one of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTCOL’s most memorable and impressive stunts.
“When you arrive in Dubai, it’s just striking. It’s this incredible 21st century city that literally just rises out of the desert,” says producer Bryan Burk. “The city had never truly been photographed for a motion picture portraying itself,” Brad Bird notes. Filmmakers had not yet taken advantage of the vertical scale of Dubai. “It’s cinematic from the get-go,” notes Bird. “A lot of the architecture is very imaginative and seems so futuristic. The fact that it’s surrounded by desert is such a surreal sight, because it’s just dunes and flatness, and there’s this city rising up like Oz. It’s understandable why other filmmakers were attracted to Dubai as a visual playground.”
In 2009, while Burk and Abrams were traveling the world to promote “Star Trek,” they stopped one night in Dubai, on their way to show their new film to the troops in Kuwait. “We got a tour of the city, and J.J. turned to me and said, ‘We HAVE to come back here and shoot a movie.’” A year later, when conversations about a new Mission: Impossible movie were taking place, Burk says, “We started asking ourselves, ‘Well, where would be a great place to set it?’ And J.J. just said, ‘Well, what about Dubai? We could set a scene at the Burj Khalifa.’”
Related Link: View the Full Production Notes for Mission Impqossible Ghost Protocol
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