Tom Cruise's Next Mission: Manhattan
"Mission: Impossible III," the third installment of the action franchise, will make its U.S. debut at the Tribeca Film Festival on May 3. The movie's star, Tom Cruise, is gearing up for a full day of screenings and events throughout the Big Apple in a spectacle that the . festival has dubbed, "Mission: NYC."
The event kicks off at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, with Cruise appearing live on MTV's "TRL" in Times Square. It culminates with a grand debut nearly six hours later in Tribeca.
As part of the stunt, Cruise, who plays Secret Agent Ethan Hunt in the film, will travel by motorcycle, speedboat, taxi, helicopter, sports car, and subway across the island of Manhattan, making pit stops at premieres in Tribeca and Harlem before descending upon 54th Street's Ziegfeld Theatre for the U.S. premiere.
"We're thrilled that Tom Cruise is bringing "M:I:III" to the Tribeca Film Festival and New York City," Robert De Niro, the festival's co-founder, said in a statement.
Cruise and his "Mission: Impossible :III" cast mates have been globetrotting for premieres throughout the past week. They've already walked red carpets in Rome, Paris, and London's Leicester Square, where Cruise chatted with member of the media and greeted fans for three hours.
Cruise and his fiancée, Katie Holmes, welcomed a baby girl named Suri on April 18. The action star skipped a news conference for the movie on April 26 in Paris to load up on baby wares from local boutiques, organizers said. Holmes did not attend any of the European premieres, but Cruise's adopted children Isabella, 13, and Connor, 11, were in tow in London.
"Mission: Impossible III" is directed by "Lost" co-creator, J.J. Abrams, who is a first-time filmmaker. It also stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Keri Russell, Maggie Q, and Laurence Fishburne.
The plot has Cruise's character returning to action when another agent (Keri Russell) is kidnapped by a baddy, played by Hoffman, a recent Oscar winner.