Paramount received £85m from British taxpayers to make Mission Impossible movies in UK

Paramount Studios – makers of the extremely popular Mission Impossible movie franchise – received almost £85 million of British taxpayers’ money to shoot the three latest films in the UK, British outlet Daily Mail reported.

While the latest Mission Impossible film was shot all over the world including in locations such as Abu Dhabi, Rome, Venice, and Norway. However, most of the film was shot in the UK – specifically the Leavesden Studios in Watford, Hertfordshire, and Longcross Studios near Chobham, Surrey.

Mission: Impossible Fallout, which was released in 2018, was also shot at Leavesden Studios, and Longcross is being used for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two, scheduled to be released in 2024.

Films that are shot in the UK benefit from a program by the British government known as the Film Tax Relief scheme, which gives cash reimbursement of up to 25% of the money spent in the country as long as the amount represents 10% of the total costs.

To show that the money spent in the UK is more than the required threshold, studios set up separate companies for each film and file publicly accessible accounts before the government.

The three latest Mission Impossible films, the 2018 Fallout and both parts of Dead Reckoning, were made by Jupiter Spring Productions, which is a UK-based subsidiary of the American production company Paramount Studios.

According to the accounts filed by Jupiter Spring, the company has received £84.5 million in cash from the British government in a five-year period since 2016 – when the company was set up.

The production company also received a combined amount of £10.1 million in insurance payouts and £1.4 million in grants due to shooting disruptions caused by the COVID lockdowns.

The accounts also revealed the amount that the company spent on making the three Mission Impossible films in the UK – a staggering £547.8 million!

Mission Impossible to hit big screens next week

The latest film in the franchise, titled ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’, is set to be released in India on July 12. The film has a star-studded cast featuring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Pom Klementieff, Simon Pegg, and others.

Cruise will reprise his iconic role as agent Ethan Hunt, who along with his Impossible Missions Force (IMF) team will go against a powerful enemy called ‘The Entity’.

The second part of this film is scheduled to be released on June 28, 2024.