Tom Cruise Sets Guinness World Record for Burning Parachute Jumps

If you’ve successfully leaped out of a helicopter with a burning parachute and lived 15 times, you’re not going to like Tom Cruise too much now. Guinness World Records awarded the actor, who performs his own stunts, with the title for “most burning parachute jumps by an individual.” Cruise pulled off the stunt 16 times while filming Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

A new 80-second promo clip for the movie shows Cruise plummeting earthward, his cheeks all flippy floppy, as he looks up to see his chute on fire. He then explains that he has about 10 seconds to pull of the stunt in order to survive in real life (which very much sounds like something his character, Ethan Hunt, would do in the movie.) The special effects team shows how it set up the shot. And then he’s up in the air doing it, flames hovering over his head as superimposed numbers count each of the 16 takes Cruise needed to do to get the shot right. For the 16th, you get to see the safety chute work and the relief on his face.

Cruise filmed the stunt in Drakensberg, South Africa, leaping from a helicopter that was at least 7,500 feet over the ground; for some takes, he wore a 50-pound snorri camera rig. The flaming parachutes burnt up in 2.3 to three seconds each take, so Cruise had to think fast — 16 times in a row. “We’re going to be real smart,” Cruise says in the clip. “I’m not saying be risky. We don’t take risks, obviously.”

“Tom doesn’t just play action heroes — he is an action hero!” Craig Glenday, Guinness World Records editor-in-chief, said in a statement on the Guinness website. “A large part of his success can be chalked up to his absolute focus on authenticity and pushing the boundaries of what a leading man can do. It’s an honor to be able to recognize his utter fearlessness with this new Guinness World Records title.”

Cruise also holds the Guinness title for “most consecutive $100-million-grossing movies (actor).”

The recognition for his stunt work arrives a few months after Academy Awards organizers announced they would be adding an Oscar for Stunt Design to the annual trophy toss. Unfortunately for Cruise, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning isn’t eligible since the first year it will be awarded is 2027.

From Rolling Stone US.