It looks like another Mission: Impossible crew will be filming on location in Norway again later this year. The Norwegian Film Institute is at least offering NOK 68.6 million (USD 8 million) in incentive funding to a film project code-named Scorpio that’s backed by Paramount of the US and True North Productions.
Both were behind the last Mission: Impossible film that had been code-maned Libra, the Zodiac sign just before Scorpio. Both Culture Minister Abid Raja and film institute officials were being coy, but Raja has stressed with a smile that Cruise promised to return with his crew, claiming he “loved Norway.”
There were immediate objections to the large allocation of incentive funding, which won the entire pot in this year’s state budget. There were 10 other applicants for funding and many of their Norwegian producers were bitterly disappointed. “Norway shouldn’t spend NOK 70 million so that Raja can take a new selfie with Tom Cruise,” Synnøve Hørsdal of Maipo Film complained to state broadcaster NRK Thursday evening. “Now in the midst of the Corona crisis, everyone is re-evaluating programs. It’s unusual to give the whole pot to an American film.”
True North Norway, which assists foreign film crews, argued that the last Mission Impossible 7 film hired around 900 people and invested around NOK 200 million in Norway during last year’s filming. State officials also argue that Norway stands to gain exposure when its scenery is used in films, even though scenes shot on Norway’s famed Preikestolen were made to look like the mountaintop was in Kashmir, not Norway.
newsinenglish.no staff
