After 19 years, Tom Cruise's first major franchise is still one of Hollywood's best.
As Ethan Hunt, the star turned himself into an action hero with 1996's "Mission: Impossible" -- going Full Cruise with all the running, punching and jumping onto a bullet train from (naturally) an exploding helicopter. The first film was a huge hit, spawning five sequels -- all from different directors, as the series aims to give each "Mission" its own unique fingerprint.
Cruise is back for the latest installment, "Rogue Nation." Before you see the movie this Friday, your mission -- should you choose to accept it -- is to check out these 27 facts about the "Mission" films.
"Mission: Impossible" (1996)
1. Before locking down Brian De Palma to direct, the first filmmaker Cruise approached about "Mission" was Sydney Pollack, whom he had worked with previously on Paramount's 1993 summer hit, "The Firm."
2. De Palma designed many of the film's action sequences before the story connecting them was complete, forcing screenwriters to construct narratives around them.
3. Offers to appear in the film went out to original "Mission" TV stars Peter Graves and Martin Landau, but they declined. Graves said "no" because he wasn't a fan of his character, Jim Phelps, being the baddie, so Jon Voight was cast in the role instead. And Landau passed because he disliked the story favoring action over the "mind games" of the TV series.
4. During the film's most iconic set piece, the stealing of the NOC List (above), note the clock on the wall: The time displayed jumps ahead in time (sometimes drastically) in certain shots -- even though the scene is supposed to be occurring in (near) real time.
5. "Mission" was one of the first major Hollywood productions to shoot in Prague.
6. The film's trailer shows Ethan and Claire, Phelps' wife, engaged in a steamy kiss. That scene does not exist in the final cut, as the filmmakers decided to scrap the love triangle between the three characters as it didn't jive tonally with the rest of the film. (It also risked making Ethan, the film's hero, seem unlikable by having an affair with his boss' wife.)
7. Danny Elfman scored the film, but only after Alan Silvestri ("Forrest Gump") was let go from "Mission" after his music tested poorly with test audiences. But don't feel too bad for Silvestri; he was able to re-use some of his "Mission" score in the 1996 action movie "Eraser," which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.
8. The climactic train sequence (above) took six weeks to shoot, and is made up of 152 shots. Cruise and Voight shot most of the sequence on a London soundstage, duking it out atop a mock-up of the bullet train's roof.
9. Cruise was originally not a fan of the helicopter flying into the tunnel after the train. De Palma insisted that they needed to go big for the film's climatic set piece, so Cruise relented.
"M:I-2" (2000)
10. Hot off the success of their film, "Star Trek: First Contact," screenwriters Ron Moore and Brannon Braga were first approached to develop a story for the sequel. While very little (if anything) from their original pass ended up in the final film, they do receive "Story by" credit.
11. When developing the film, director John Woo was inspired by Hitchcock's "Notorious." The classic thriller centers on a love triangle involving spies, and Woo wanted to bring a similar dynamic to the relationship between Ethan Hunt, the villain, Ambrose (Dougray Scott) and the love interest they both share, Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton).
12. Another Hitchcock film that seemingly inspired Woo? "To Catch a Thief." Woo changed Hall from being a spy to a master thief, hoping to give the sequel a very Cary Grant vibe.
13. The opening scene, where Cruise climbs and leaps from a 2,000-foot cliff, was the scariest and most challenging of Woo's career. Cruise did the aforementioned stunt himself, with no safety net on the ground (naturally) but with a safety harness, which was digitally-removed in post. That's just how Cruise rolls.
14. Before Anthony Hopkins was cast in the role of Hunt's boss, Swanbeck, Woo set his sights on Ian McKellen for the part. The once and future Magneto was unavailable, but Hopkins was interested in appearing in the film. When producer Paula Wagner told Woo this, the director reportedly was so excited about working with the legendary actor that he lost sleep.
"Mission: Impossible III" (2006)
15. The film's intense opening scene, where villain Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) interrogates Hunt, was not "M:I:III's" original opening. Director J.J. Abrams decided on the sequence several weeks before delivering a final cut. In fact, the scene featured Davian's Number Two, played by Eddie Marsan, delivering all of Hoffman's lines.
16. Abrams called Marsan to tell him that, while the actor was contracted for the film and that he did a great job, he was going to give all his lines to Hoffman. Marsan couldn't have been more understanding and respectful of the director's choice, according to Abrams' commentary on the Blu-ray.
17. The first time Cruise met Abrams was on the set of Steven Spielberg's 2005 blockbuster, "War of the Worlds."
18. Spielberg contributed a tiny (but fun) element to the "your mission, should you choose to accept it" scene. Hunt was originally supposed to get his orders via the eye finder in a regular camera. Spielberg suggested they change it to a disposable camera.
19. During the stunt where Hunt leaps out of a Shanghai skyscraper and deploys his parachute, Cruise points out on the Blu-ray commentary the moment when he separated his ribs.
20. When Musgrave (Billy Crudup) reveals he is the villain to Hunt, Cruise held cue cards for the actor. Why? Because the scene wasn't written until the morning it was shot, so Crudup didn't have time to learn his lines.
21. Rumor is that, the original scripted ending for the film, depicted a now-married Hunt and his wife (Michelle Monaghan) celebrating their nuptials by diving out of a helicopter to either para-ski or water ski on Lake Wanaka, the lake the couple discusses briefly during the opening scene set at their engagement party.
"Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" (2011)
22. "Rogue Nation" writer-director Christopher McQuarrie did uncredited script doctoring for the film.
23. Originally, "Ghost Prots" was intended to be a reboot of sorts for Paramount, but thankfully the studio changed its mind.
24. The opening scene in Budapest was to have depicted Ethan Hunt leaping off the building and getting assassinated. When it was decided to keep Hunt (and Cruise) around, the scene was changed to involve the character of Hanaway, played by "Lost's" Josh Holloway.
25. Jeremy Renner probably wasn't a big fan of that change, as his character, Brandt, was in place to inherit the missions from Hunt.
26. And yes, that is Cruise scaling the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. To help the actor prep for it, production constructed a mock-up of the section similar to the real thing. They even heated the glass to mirror (no pun intended) the conditions faced on the real building, which sits in the hot desert son all day.
27. "Ghost Prots" continues the tradition of Cruise sporting long hair for the even-numbered installments, and only short hair seemingly for the odd-numbered films.
It's been two decades, and still, the waves from the tsunami that was "
5. If "Waterworld" reminds you a lot of the "
8. Early in the shoot, co-stars 
14. All the turmoil had caused the shoot to balloon from a scheduled 96 days to 157 days, and the budget swelled as a result. By the time distribution and marketing costs were added, "Waterworld" had a price tag of $235 million.
17. At the 1996 Golden Raspberry Awards, "Waterworld" was nominated for four Razzies, including Worst Picture, Worst Actor, and Worst Director. It lost three of the four, but it won Worst Supporting Actor for villain 
"That'll do, pig. That'll do."
6. To make the animals talk, the filmmakers relied on computerized mouth movements developed by Los Angeles effects house Rhythm & Hues, best known for the talking cat in "Hocus Pocus" and the Coca-Cola polar bear ads.
13. Before starring as Farmer Arthur Hoggett in "Babe," 
Long before the lurid "E! True Hollywood Story" series, there was "
1. Initially, Wilder (above) and writing partner Charles Brackett conceived the story as a comedy about a has-been actress making a comeback, and they imagined Mae West as the star. But West found the role unflattering, a problem that continued to make casting difficult after Brackett and Wilder rewrote the film as a drama. They approached such silent-era stars as Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, and even Greta Garbo (who'd starred in the writers' hit "Ninotchka"), but all of them turned down the role of Norma Desmond.
5. The house that played Norma's mansion was really on Wilshire Boulevard, not Sunset. It had belonged to J. Paul Getty's family. It would appear on film again a few years later in "Rebel Without a Cause," shortly before the Gettys tore it down and replaced it with an office high-rise.
10. That eerie shot of Joe face down in the pool (pictured), seen from underneath with the police and paparazzi hovering over him, was difficult for Wilder to get right. He tried lowering a camera into the pool in a see-through, waterproof box, but he didn't like the result. Ultimately, he succeeded by placing a mirror on the floor of the pool and shooting the reflection of Holden and the cops and photographers.
15. Despite the initial outrage from Hollywood insiders, the Academy recognized the film's artistry and nominated it for 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Black-and-White Cinematography, and Best Editing. It won for Best Screenplay, Best Black-and-White Art Direction, and Best Score (for composer Franz Waxman). It earned nominations in all four acting categories, for leads Holden and Swanson and supporting players von Stroheim and Olson. It's one of only three films nominated in all four acting categories that didn't win any of them; the other two are "My Man Godfrey" (1936) and "American Hustle" (2013).
Who is Keyser Soze?
5. Bryan Singer really wanted 
15. What wasn't easy was shooting the line-up scene. It was originally planned to be a "serious" scene, but the actors got a case of the giggles while shooting and were messing around, so Singer opted to go with the funnier version of it. Word 'round the campfire is that the laughter was mostly caused by Del Toro having a bad case of the farts. Yep, that happened.
20. The Soze name was caused film executives concern, as they worried that "average" audiences would have no idea how to pronounce it. Hence why the "Who is Keyser Soze?" marketing campaign was launched, to help Rosetta Stone moviegoers on how to say the Big Bad's name.
Kevin McCallister is one sadistic little boy, and we've got the GIFs to prove it. Looking back at "
"I want people to get infuriated by it," 
1. The real Henry Hill was an associate of the Lucchese crime family, who later went into the federal witness protection program in 1980. Pileggi's interviews with Hill made up the bulk of "Wiseguy." He earned a reported $480,000 as a consultant on the film, whose details he would later praise as 90 percent accurate.
6. Marlon Brando almost talked Scorsese (pictured, right) out of making "Goodfellas," saying the director would just be repeating what he'd done in "Mean Streets" and "Raging Bull." But Scorsese's longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, read Pileggi's tale to her husband, legendary British film director Michael Powell. Convinced that the story offered a fresh, funny take on the gangster genre, Powell told Scorsese, "You must do it," and changed Scorsese's mind.
11. The notorious "Funny how?" sequence (pictured above) was improvised by Pesci and Liotta, based on a conversation Pesci had once had with someone Scorsese characterized as "a dangerous man." This time, Pesci got to be the dangerous man. He improvised the lines in rehearsal, Scorsese had them transcribed, and the actors memorized them before the cameras rolled.
16. Schoonmaker has said that she and Scorsese especially enjoyed putting together the lengthy montage that makes up Henry's last day as a wiseguy (above) because they made a point of experimenting and violating every rule of classical editing in order to simulate the jagged, out-of-control rhythms of Henry's cocaine-fueled paranoia. Test audiences found the sequence irritating, prompting Schoonmaker and Scorsese to make the sequence even faster and edgier.
21. Unlike Henry, Karen Hill and the couple's children, Gregg and Gina, have maintained assumed identities and kept a relatively low profile. Gregg and Gina did publish a memoir of their own, 2004's "On the Run: A Mafia Childhood."