After the Paris Olympics this year, the French city passed on the hosting duties to Los Angeles, California, which is set to hold the summer Olympics in 2028. It is tradition that the white Olympic flag is passed to the next host city, and they decided to carry this on in the most American way possible. The Closing Ceremony had Tom Cruise jump off the Stade du France into the stadium. He grabbed the flag and rode it onto his motorcycle, before the broadcast cut to a pre-taped video of the Mission: Impossible star bringing the flag to LA. Apparently, this stunt took over a year to plan, and a lot of moving parts had to come together to pull it off.
How The Incredible Closing Ceremony Stunt Came Together
Ben Winston was one of the producers for the Closing Ceremony for this year's Olympics, and he spoke about how his team made the incredible Tom Cruise stunt happen. He got the idea of an international travel video following the stunt after being inspired by one of Conan O’Brien’s unforgettable bits in the 2000s.
Apparently, they started speaking to Cruise about his involvement in the video and potential stunt about a year and a half ago. He had established a relationship with the actor after working with him on several segments for The Late Late Show with James Corden, where Cruise made the talk show host participate in stunts. He explained pitching to Cruise, telling THR:
Yeah. Then, I pitched it to Tom. He was the first pitch I had. If he hadn’t gone with it, I can’t really think who else would work. Who else is synonymous with action and an American hero? When we got Tom, I felt like the whole thing would work — so we went from there. But it’s been over a year and a half to achieve that.
That amount of time is wild to think about.
How The Big Stunt Changed Over A Year And A Half
When Winston first pitched the idea, he only pitched the motorcycle travel part of the stunt, therefore the Oscar nominee would only participate in the pre-taped aspect in a more controlled environment.
They would instead have a double jump into Paris to take the actual flag. Of course, in true Cruise fashion, he wanted to do the entire thing, and didn’t want a stunt double wearing a balaclava to have all the fun on the world stage. Winston revealed what feedback Tom specifically gave.
Tom’s feedback was, 'I love the idea, only we’re not doing a stuntman in a balaclava. I’m going to be the one who jumps off the roof, and I’m going to be the one who drives through Paris.' Obviously, that’s better for me. The only reason I pitched the balaclava is because it was the difference between a one-day shoot and a four-day shoot plus rehearsals.
They tried to keep this whole thing hush-hush while they were filming, saying that they tried to disguise their shoot as a Mission: Impossible movie, and used a plain white flag to safeguard the most important aspect of the shoot. Unfortunately, people caught wind of the Cruise Olympics rumors and soon everyone knew it would be the actor bringing the Olympics flag to Los Angeles, particularly once Cruise actually started climbing the Hollywood sign for what would be the Olympics video moment fans watched again and again.
Regardless, even if people knew about it, it certainly didn’t take away from how mystifying the stunt was, and how the Top Gun: Maverick star will truly go the extra mile for an audience.
At the end of the day, the year-and-a-half-long planning process and the extended shoot were all worth it. This moment will go down as one of the best Olympic flag handoffs ever. It was the perfect way to celebrate America hosting the international sporting event, as well as the tremendous victories the United States had in Paris this year.
I can’t imagine anything more American than a quintessential movie star riding a motorcycle onto a plane and climbing an iconic landmark. Kudos to Ben Winston and the producing team, as well as Tom Cruise for making this happen.
When Cruise isn’t representing America in Paris, he actually is filming the next Mission: Impossible movie, which is currently scheduled to be released in May on the 2025 movie release schedule. You can see the Oscar nominee doing other never-before-seen stunts in previous Mission: Impossible movies, which are currently all streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.
