Mission: Impossible filming to resume in UK under quarantine exemption plans

Filming on the latest Mission: Impossible movies will be able to resume in England as the Government looks to exempt high-end stars from quarantine.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden is said to have spoken to the franchise’s 58-year-old star Tom Cruise earlier in the week about how the production will be able to continue.

Both Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 – which feature American actor and director Cruise – are being shot at the Warner Bros Studios Leavesden in Hertfordshire.

The Government said it will publish guidance this week allowing “small numbers” of essential cast and crew to travel to the UK without having to quarantine for 14 days.

Exempted individuals will instead have to live and work in controlled “bubbled” environments – such as filming locations – for the same period of time.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “The world’s biggest blockbusters and high-end TV shows are made in Britain.

“Our creativity, expertise and highly successful tax reliefs for our screen industries means that we are an in demand location that in turn delivers a great return for our economy.

“We want the industry to bounce back and exempting small numbers of essential cast and crew from quarantine is part of our continued commitment to getting cameras rolling safely again.”

The exemption applies to individuals coming to England specifically to work on film and television productions which qualify as British, the Government said.

Adrian Wootton, chief executive of the British Film Commission, said: “Today’s immensely welcome news is also a clear recognition of the importance of the film and high-end TV inward investment sector to the UK’s economy.

“The sector was worth over £3 billion in 2019, and has a clear role to play in our economic recovery following the lockdown.”

Cruise revealed in January last year that the next two Mission: Impossible action films would be released in Summer 2021 and Summer 2022.

However filming on Mission: Impossible 7, which will feature British actor Simon Pegg, had to be halted in Italy in February over coronavirus fears.

The films focus on agent Ethan Hunt, played by Cruise, and will be directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who previously worked on 2015’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Mission: Impossible – Fallout in 2018.

Back in June, Universal said it was due to resume filming on Jurassic World: Domination in the UK from the second week of July at Pinewood Studios near Slough.

Ben Roberts, chief executive of the British Film Institute, said:  “Film and television are worth £9.9 billion to the UK economy and being able to get production back up and running as quickly as possible is going to help our industry and its 77,000 production workers contribute to the UK’s economic recovery.”