The making of the newest Mission: Impossible movie has been a task worthy of the Impossible Mission Force. The movie was supposed to start filming a year and a half ago when the earliest days of the global pandemic's start in Europe shut it down. Since then it's been a lot of starting and stopping as production has needed to shut down more than once due to positive Covid tests on set. But the movie is now in the home stretch and director Christopher McQuarrie is thanking both the cast and the crew for their hard work on the long shoot in a new social media post that includes Tom Cruise.
The post from Christopher McQuarrie is specifically a recognition of Mission: Impossible 7's first assistant director Mary Boulding, who, after being a second and third assistant director on previous films, is celebrating her 100th day as the first AD for the very first time. She's looking quite powerful with both McQuarrie and the cast of Mission: Impossible 7 standing behind her. Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, and more are there to congratulate her on the achievement.
It's really cool that Christopher McQuarrie took the time to recognize Mary Boulder here. The first assistant director isn't exactly a glorified job that gets a lot of praise. Most people in the movie theater won't know the name of the person who had that job, or even have much of an idea what it is that they do. And the job is a vital one. As the title implies, the first assistant is the director's right hand. Frequently they're responsible for managing the set so the director can focus on getting the shots that are needed.
The other reason this milestone for Mary Boulding is note worthy is that she's had the job for 100 days, which is longer than many movies take to film, and only a fraction of the time this one has been in production. Many movies, even major blockbusters, can get every shot they need in a month or two. 100 days would be a long shoot even under normal circumstances. But Mission: Impossible 7 has been filming in one capacity or another for almost a year. They started before the winter holidays, and are just now getting near the end.
As such, Mary Boulding clearly wasn't the first, first AD, as if she's only had the job for 100 days, then she's only been doing the job since early May. Likely, due to the bizarre reshuffling of shooting schedules for a lot of movies, other crew members had to leave to work on other projects and then they needed to be replaced.
With Rebecca Ferguson recently having wrapped filming, it looks like the new movie is close to being done shooting. Very soon the First AD, and the rest of the cast and crew, can get some well deserved rest.
