Case Study - Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol

Pre production:

Ghost Protocol was written by André Nemec and Josh Appelbaum, and produced by Cruise, J.J. Abrams (the third film's director) and Bryan Burk. It saw the return of the first film's editor, Paul Hirsch, and is also the first Mission: Impossible film to be partially filmed using IMAX cameras.

This was a sequel of the previous three mission impossible films and due to the success of the first three; there was no hesitation that this sequel wouldn’t be any better.

As mission impossible is such a well-known name it wasn’t hard for them to get financial backing from companies, such as: Paramount and Skydance Productions.

The production company was bad robot productions, which have produced many films including: Cloverfield, Mission Impossible 3, Star Trek and more.

The producers were Tom Cruise (also the main actor), J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk. Tom Cruise has been involved in every single mission impossible movie so it is understandable that Mr Cruise would be part of the production team as he contains experience. J.J. Abrams was also chosen to produce the movie as he has a great record of movies that he has produced, he also directed, wrote and produced mission impossible 3 so he again had a lot of experience with this genre of movie.

The director was Brad Bird, who had directed many animated films including such as The Incredibles, Ratatouille, The Iron Giant and more. So this was a very bold and brave for them to appoint a director who has not got that much experience with action movies.

Production:

Casting – they kept the main character Tom Cruise which was a shock to some fans as there were rumors that the main character ‘Ethan Hunt’ was going to be replaced by other A – list celebrity actors, such as Brad Pitt. The movie cast also has other big named stars such as: Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist and Vladimir Mashkov.

Locations - Filming took place in Dubai, Prague, Moscow, Mumbai, Bangalore and Vancouver. Tom Cruise performed a sequence where Ethan Hunt scales the outside of the Burj Khalifa tower, which is the world's tallest building, without the use of a stunt double. Although Cruise appears to be free solo climbing in the film with the help of special gloves, in reality, he was securely attached to the Burj Khalifa at all times by multiple cables. Industrial Light & Magic digitally erased the cables in post-production.

Many of the film's interior scenes were shot at Vancouver's Canadian Motion Picture Park, including a key transition scene in a specially equipped IMF train car.

The film was originally announced with a working name of Mission: Impossible 4 and codenamed "Aries" during early production.

The film was partially shot with IMAX cameras, which made up approximately 30 minutes of the film's run time. Bird insisted that certain scenes of the film be shot in IMAX, as opposed to 3D, as he felt that the IMAX format offered the viewer more immersion due to its brighter, higher quality image, which is projected on a larger screen, without the need for specialized glasses.

Distribution:

The distributor is paramount pictures, they are a big distribution company founded in 1912 and have distributed many great and huge movies, including the Godfather, Grease, Mission Impossible and many more.

Following the world premiere in Dubai on December 7, 2011, the film was released in IMAX and other large-format theaters in the U.S. on December 16, 2011, with general release on December 21, 2011.

In July 2011, a teaser trailer for Ghost Protocol was released illustrating new shots from the film, one of which being Tom Cruise scaling the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa building in Dubai. Moreover; prior to its release, the studio presented IMAX footage of the film to an invitation-only crowd of opinion makers and journalists at central London's BFI IMAX Theater.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was released on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download on April 17, 2012.

Publicity - During November 2011, Paramount released a Facebook game of the film in order to promote it. The new game allowed players to choose the roles of IMF agents and assemble teams to embark on a multiplayer journey. Players were also able to win tickets to the film's U.S. premiere and a hometown screening of the film for 30 friends.

They have a Facebook page which created awareness for the movie as there is over a billion people on facebook.

Trailer – the official trailer is very effective in attracting the audience as it has a well-known rapper (Eminem) singing, which draws in the audience. Also the clip is for 2:24 minutes, which is considerably a long time, which allows all the main actors to be seen by the audience that again entices the audience as they see that well-known, famous actors are in the movie. The trailer also represents the genre very well as it displays a lot of action going on in the movie and adventures actives, such as Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) climbing up the Burj Khalifa or Ethan falling of a building whilst shooting at some one.

Exhibition:

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol received very strong positive reviews, scoring a 93% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 212 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10 and an audience rating of 85%, making it the best-reviewed entry of the series.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying the film "is a terrific thriller with action sequences that function as a kind of action poetry". Stephen Whitty of The Star-Ledger wrote, "The eye-candy - from high-tech gadgets to gorgeous people - has only been ratcheted up. And so has the excitement." He also gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars.

The budget was £145 million

Ghost Protocol grossed worldwide total of $694,713,380. It is the highest-grossing film worldwide in the Mission: Impossible series, and the 5th highest-grossing film of 2011. It is also the highest-grossing film worldwide starring Tom Cruise, eclipsing War of the Worlds from the top spot.