Written by new-contact on Sep 2, 2014. Posted in On Location

Mission Impossible 5 closes Morocco highway as Tom Cruise films North Africa

Part of the Casablanca-Agadir highway has been closed by Morocco’s National Highway Company to accommodate filming for Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible 5. The closure will last until the end of next week and the production is also expected to shoot elsewhere in the country.

Cruise and an assortment of his Mission: Impossible 5 co-stars including Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson recently filmed scenes on location in the Austrian capital Vienna, before travelling to Morocco.

Morocco remains a popular international filming location, particularly as a safer double for the Middle East. Television productions have been particularly prolific in the North African country over the past year. The BBC doubled the region for the Middle East in its political miniseries The Honourable Woman and also filmed locally for an adaptation of biblical drama The Ark.

Morocco doubled for ancient Egypt in the pilot for the short-lived US series Hieroglyph and will do so again for Tut, a TV drama that will star Ben Kingsley as an influential advisor to the famous pharaoh Tutankhamen.

International feature production has been less prolific in recent years, with the last major shoot being the underperforming fantasy epic Prince of Persia. The country faces competition from the likes of Malta and Abu Dhabi, which both offer world-class studio facilities and filming incentives.

Mission: Impossible 5 is based at Warner Bros at Leavesden Studios in north London, where it will take advantage of the UK’s generous filming tax credit. Cruise also filmed at Leavesden for his recent sci-fi drama Edge of Tomorrow and the London shoot included closing Trafalgar Square for several hours to film a helicopter landing.

(Image: Paramount Pictures)