Tom Cruise received clearance to bypass Norway’s coronavirus quarantine restrictions to film the next installment of “Mission: Impossible 7”.
Abid Raja, the country’s Minister of Culture and Equality, confirmed the news in a tweet and provided a clip of a phone call between him and the actor discussing his return in the fall.
“Under a very strict crown regime estimated at a cost of 6 million, MI7 with Tom Cruise will be able to film in Norway,” Raja tweeted, adding that the country will not provide filming costs.
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This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Tom Cruise in a scene from “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” the sixth film in the Mission Impossible franchise.
(AP)
Raja said the cast and crew will have to do a negative test twice for the coronavirus “on arrival” to film, in addition to undergoing daily temperature checks. A “mobile crown laboratory” will also be on site, he said.
“It’s a beautiful country. I can’t wait to get back there,” Cruise is heard telling Raja in the video. “I am very excited, as is the entire crew, to return.”
Raja expressed joy when Cruise confirmed that it really was him on the other end of the phone.
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“We are very excited to have you back as well, and we look forward to solving this crown situation for both you and others,” Raja told the actor. “We have one thing in common, you know?”
Tom Cruise attends the premiere of ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ in China at the Ancestral Temple on August 29, 2018 in Beijing.
(Getty)
The Norwegian politician joked that, like Cruise, he has been “hanging on the Preikestolen”. The Preikestolen translates as the “Pulpit Rock” and is known as one of the country’s great tourist attractions. It served as the nearly 2,000-foot cliff that Cruise climbed in “Mission: Impossible – Fallout.”
Raja added that he is “waiting” for Cruise’s return, to which the actor replied, “I can’t wait.”
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According to Forbes, the Norwegian government recently issued updated quarantine restrictions in the country. The media outlet points out that while visitors traveling to Norway from Hungary and seven regions of Sweden “will no longer have to be quarantined,” anyone traveling from Spain after midnight on July 24 will do so because they are told to do so. considered a “red” risk country.
Other red countries include Portugal, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Luxembourg, which require a 10-day quarantine.
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Production in the seventh installment of the Cruise-led franchise stopped months ago as a precautionary measure to protect the cast and crew from the coronavirus in Italy, where the shooting would take place before the country became an epicenter of the outbreak in Europe.
However, Simon Pegg, who plays Benji Dunn in the movies, revealed to Variety last month that the production is set to go back to work in September, with some new restrictions to lower the risk of contracting COVID-19.
