‘Mission: Impossible 7’ Given Special Permission to Resume Filming in U.K.
By George Robbins
As of late, there have been many production companies that have been doing their best in order to try and get their production crews back out in the field to continue on with their filming that they had to postpone. At the same time that movie theaters in the U.S. shut down, Hollywood as a whole shut down movie productions all over the world in order to help prevent spread of the coronavirus. There were productions going on all over the world that have been greatly affected by the shut down and it will take some time before they can truly get up to speed to resume. Before any productions are allowed to resume in any other countries, there is a 2-week grace period for quarantine to make sure no one on staff has it. Then, and only then, are they allowed to begin working on their productions again.
James Cameron wanted very much to restart production on his second ‘Avatar’ film and this became very much within the realm of possibility back in May when New Zealand announced no new cases. In order to resume production, the cast and crew had to fly out to the country and spend two weeks in isolation in order to ensure that no one had the virus. These precautions were put into place in order to prevent the outbreak from occurring in the country again and to allow the production crews the necessary freedom they will need to shoot the film. Without the guarantee that people will not end up being sick in some way, there would be no way to make the film without restrictions in place. These restrictions would cause nothing but trouble and could completely change the movie itself.
Among the places that have such restrictions in place is the U.K., who have started to allow production crews back into the country to allow them to resume filming. In the U.K. the rules for the two week quarantine must be put into place in order to prevent spread of the virus among the crew who are working there. It seems, however, that the seventh upcoming film for one of the longest action franchises, ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ will be able to resume filming with special exception to the quarantine rule. This rule is in place for people from foreign countries, but if a film or television production is considered British, they can resume filming without the quarantine. This seems to be more of a loophole since they are taking advantage of British Film Institute classifications to continue working.
Even though this might be seen as something akin to a loophole, it applies very specifically to cast and crew who are only there for film and television productions. Their goal was to start up production again by September, but now that they will be able to start working as soon as they get there, they may start sooner rather than later. By saving two weeks of production time, there is a good chance that they are simply trying to keep the release on schedule as much as possible to prevent an even bigger delay than they already have. They will be starting filming with outdoor scenes first which gives them more opportunity to play around with the restrictions for interior shots which could help the film. The movie was supposed to have a release date some time in July 2021, but when the pandemic started they had to move the theatrical release date to some time in November of 2021.