When a movie is coming together, often it takes numerous edits before it gets to its final iteration. Though Mission: Impossible -- Fallout was ultimately a movie that ran well over two hours in length, originally it was even longer, at 2:43 in length. Director Christopher McQuarrie even had to cut a scene he particularly liked in order to make the movie zippier. He revealed in a recent interview there was a whole musical sequence that almost made the movie. Per McQuarrie:
The White Widow was singing when you first walked into the room with her, and if you watch very carefully you can see a couple of her movements give that away. [Cinematographer] Rob Hardy and I had this idea of wanting to move from the nightclub into a completely different environment, and we got one of those ideas, we got very giddy with each other, like, 'Oh my God, she could be singing!' And Vanessa Kirby was game, she learned how to sing this song, we brought in an orchestra, we did all this work, it was really great. She looked fabulous.
Even hearing the director reminisce about the setup of the scene makes me a little wistful we didn't get to see it in the final version. It sounds like Vanessa Kirby really worked to get her vocals just right and the production even paid for a darn orchestra to set the scene. Yet, the whole thing ended up being a little too much and Christopher McQuarrie tightened up the scene.
Christopher McQuarrie went on to tell Collider in the interview that he and editor Eddie Hamilton just immediately knew the scene was not necessary in the least. The two men knew it after the 2:43 draft of the movie was put together. They knew it before it screened in front of an audience. There was a good reason they knew it. According to McQuarrie,
Eddie Hamilton pointed out, before we ever screened it for an audience, this movie doesn't start until Solomon Lane shows up onscreen. And every minute that you're waiting for him to show up onscreen is a minute that we're not in the movie, and every minute has to fight for its reason to be there.
One musical number does not a movie make, but apparently one villain does. Chris McQuarrie would go on to tell Eddie Hamilton to pull the full singing sequence, although he did mention curious viewers may be able to spot exactly where the sequence would have gone. He also said that even though he liked the scene, cutting it didn't bother him. The musical number was a bit out of place and "it didn't serve the scene." Therefore, it didn't make the movie.
If the man behind Mission: Impossible -- Fallout liked the scene so much, one might hope that fans could see the final version on the movie's Blu-ray release. However, Christopher McQuarrie confirmed that fans will only get a deleted reel of the shots he had some trouble removing from the flick, noting he's not a fan of actual deleted scenes on a home entertainment set, noting,
No, I don't like them... That's why I do the DVDs and I do six-hour podcasts. I'm like, 'This is everything I learned, and everything I wish I knew, take it all.' And so that's why I talk about the scenes that I deleted. But I've also gone and watched deleted scenes on other DVDs, and I'm always left with the feeling of, 'I just drank one glass too many of lemonade, and now I've got that taste.'
Mission: Impossible -Fallout won't actually be hitting Blu-ray and DVD until the end of the year. If you are excited about revisiting the movie, you can pre-order it now or catch it starting on December 4.
