Tom Cruise lands his helicopter in South Africa as he arrives to film Mission Impossible 8
TOM Cruise has been landing his helicopter in South Africa as he continues filming for Mission Impossible 8.
The Hollywood superstar looked like a real-life Top Gun as he was photographed sat in the driver's seat of the flying machine.
Tom, 59, smiled and waved for the cameras as he hopped out of the huge helicopter after landing it in the town of Hoedspruit.
Wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans, and keeping safe with a black face mask, the actor could be seen hopping out of the aircraft.
He was joined by a co-pilot, who whom he shook hands and offered a hug to after successfully landing in a plain in the South African town.
After jumping out the helicopter, Tom addressed the waiting crowd on Tuesday evening, smiling and laughing towards them.
While the seventh Mission Impossible film is yet to be released, the actor and the rest of the cast have already been busy filming for the eighth.
However, bosses are said to be in crisis talks with star Tom after spending a HUGE £290million on the franchise.
Tom jetted to South Africa to continue work on Mission Impossible 8, flying a fleet of kit and his huge entourage from London, including his personal helicopter.
With neither of their new mega-budget films making it to the cinema yet, Paramount are though to be feeling the pressure on their wallet.
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Budgets rocketed as the pandemic caused endless delays and shutdowns.
A planned MI:7 release date of September 2022 has been shifted to July 2023, with a bill for excess costs now thought to be in the region of £50million.
The switch has had a knock-on effect for MI:8, which is under way.
As one source said “People are starting to sweat on the costs now.”
A movie mole added: “Nobody could have predicted what has happened but the fact is those delays and extra costs are stacking up now and it’s starting to get noticed.
“Even with someone as big as Tom and these films, it’s the sort of money that has leveraged the studio heavily and bosses are desperate to start seeing things hit the screen.
“Top Gun 2 is the first in the pipeline for release now, two years after it was first supposed to be in cinemas, yet production is carrying on with the latest move to South Africa and those bills are just going up and up by the day.”
Nobody makes action films like Tom, who rightly raged “we are the gold standard” when he clashed with production crew about keeping to Covid rules on set in 2020.
