{"id":158593,"date":"2025-06-04T22:11:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T22:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/158593\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T22:11:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T22:11:13","slug":"how-tom-cruises-new-blockbuster-created-a-tube-station-in-central-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/158593\/","title":{"rendered":"How Tom Cruise\u2019s new blockbuster created a Tube station in central London"},"content":{"rendered":"

The blockbuster of 2025 so far, Mission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning<\/a> is bookended by two scenes in the heart of London. The movie opens with Tom Cruise\u2019s Ethan Hunt and his team, including tech wiz Benji (Simon Pegg) and computer specialist Luther (Ving Rhames), emerging from Trafalgar Square tube station and into a throng of police and protestors all on the edge of a riot with armoured trucks standing by. Evil A.I. The Entity has taken control and martial law has been imposed on society. <\/p>\n

The second scene we won\u2019t spoil, except to say that it has the IMF crew back in the same bustling corner of Trafalgar Square and exiting the same Zone 1 station.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mission:
\nPhotograph: Paramount PicturesTrafalgar Square tube station in \u2018Mission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning\u2019 <\/p>\n

Amid this dystopian set-up, eagle-eyed viewers will have spotted one major anomaly in the two scenes: Trafalgar Square tube station, of course, does not exist. <\/p>\n

\u2018Charing Cross Station has an entrance in Trafalgar Square but to get Tom and all those extras in \u2013 and to get The National Gallery in the background \u2013 this new tube station was born,\u2019 explains the film\u2019s supervising location manager Niall O\u2019Shea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018All the Mission: Impossible movies are love letters to the cities they\u2019re in \u2013 Fallout is Paris, Dead Reckoning is Rome and Paris \u2013 so Trafalgar Square picked itself. It’s where a big protest would happen.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Mission:
\nPhotograph: Paramount PicturesTrafalgar Square under martial law in \u2018Mission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning\u2019 <\/p>\n

Creating the fictional tube station and filming in Trafalgar Square required close collaboration with TFL (Transport For London) \u2013 not least in creating the iconic roundel sign for the fictional station. \u2018The roundels are copyrighted and they kindly gave us the digital model [to work with] and permission to go ahead,\u2019 says O\u2019Shea. \u2018The sign is like a red bus or a postbox, it tells the audience we’re in London.\u2019<\/p>\n

In real life, the movie\u2019s station exit is the actually entrance to the Heritage Wardens\u2019 office. \u2019The wardens look after Trafalgar Square,\u2019 says O\u2019Shea. \u2018They stop people putting Fairy Liquid in the fountains, keep it clean and manage it as an event space.\u2019<\/p>\n

Out went the wardens, in came Cruise, Pegg, director Christopher McQuarrie, a small army of cast, crew and extras and \u2018a big travelling circus\u2019 of trucks, drones and lighting rigs in April 2025. \u2018We had the square closed for 24 hours on a Sunday,\u2019 remembers O\u2019Shea. \u2018The martial law element was dressed at 11am, the shoot crew turned up at 2pm, we filmed the daytime stuff until about 7pm, redressed it until 10-11pm, then shot til dawn. We gave it back to Londoners first thing on Monday morning.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Mission:
\nPhotograph: Time OutTrafalgar Square\u2019s Wardens\u2019 office <\/p>\n

So where are the Trafalgar Square station signs now? \u2018I know there were a few people who thought it’d make a great piece of film memorabilia,\u2019 says O\u2019Shea, \u2018but no one will own up to having it\u2019.<\/p>\n

Read our review of Tom Cruise\u2019s franchise-wrapping action epic here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Mission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning\u2019: a travel guide to the globe-spanning blockbuster<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The blockbuster of 2025 so far, Mission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning is bookended by two scenes in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,61592,393,3063,4884,257,61593,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-158593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-categories-film","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-film","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-news-film","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114627391251522570","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}