Cliffhangers are nothing new for a Tom Cruise "Mission: Impossible" film: In the film's action-packed climax,
Cruise literally hangs off a train car that is dangling precariously from a cliff.
Big stunts and death-defying sequences are a staple of Cruise's filmography. But wrapping up "Mission: Impossible
Dead Reckoning Part One" in a crowd-pleasing manner while setting the stage for the next film was "something that really kept Tom awake at night,"
says co-writer/director Christopher McQuarrie. "You wanted to feel a definitive end. And we weren't sure how that would work."While Cruise's
superspy Ethan Hunt saves the day in "Dead Reckoning," a larger threat to the world looms in "Part Two." It's a different kind of cliffhanger in a summer movie season
that's unusually full of them. In May, "Fast X" concluded with franchise star Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his young son at the bottom of a dam and an explosion that
could seal their fates as the credits began to roll. And "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," released last month,