France focus for Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Superspy Ethan Hunt and his team must evade the police, gangsters and Rebecca Ferguson's British agent (pictured).

France has generally become more viable as a filming location for big-budget Hollywood productions since boosting its formal filming incentive support to 30%.

Security was one of the production’s main initial concerns for the Mission: Impossible team, according to Valerie Lepine-Karnik, CEO of Film France, the country's location filming agency. Initial talks with the movie’s producers began in early 2016 only a few months after a series of terror attacks in the capital.

“They were also very curious about the involvement of public authorities because they knew their support would be necessary to operate the massive scenes they were planning,” says Lepine-Karnik in comments to KFTV.

“Of course they wanted to know more about the 30% tax rebate. We met some Paramount executives in April 2016 and gave them all the answers: security is stronger than ever in France, all public authorities will be helpful and co-ordinate their actions, and they would get 30% on all eligible expenses.”

Support logistics became more complicated when the planned shoot was delayed and new dates were set for the same time-frame as France’s 2017 presidential election.

“You can imagine that organising such huge filming operations in the heart of Paris at this very intense moment was not the easiest thing to do!” says Lepine-Karnik.

“All the players gathered: several ministries and the city of Paris co-ordinated their work and solved all the problems to make the filming of Mission: Impossible possible!”

In the end the French leg of the shoot spanned nearly 40 days and involved some 5,000 local crew and supporting artists.

The film’s Halo parachute jump sequence was also set in France – over Paris – but was actually filmed in the skies over Abu Dhabi.

See KFTV's production guide for more on filming in France.

To find out more about how Mission: Impossible - Fallout filmed in New Zealand click here.

Image: Paramount Pictures