Minnesota’s Surprising Role In New ‘Mission: Impossible’ Movie

Memorial Day Weekend isn’t just the unofficial kickoff to summer, it’s also the official start of the summer movie season. This year, it launches with a blockbuster that could end up being one of the biggest of 2025: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.

The latest installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise hits theaters this weekend, and once again, Tom Cruise delivers breathtaking stunt sequences that are best experienced on the big screen.

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Mission: Impossible’s Minnesota Connection

One of the most jaw-dropping scenes in the film features Cruise dangling from and climbing around a WWII biplane, and that plane has a unique connection to Minnesota. The World War II-era Boeing Stearman biplane was once owned by Ray Johnson of Buffalo, MN.

Johnson acquired the plane in 1980 and spent 20 years restoring it. He finally flew the restored aircraft in 2000 and gave nearly a thousand rides in it over the years.

From Buffalo to the Big Screen

After undergoing a couple of knee replacements and nearing 90 years old, Johnson sold the plane in 2020, not realizing at first that the buyer was Paramount Pictures. Once the paperwork was underway, the truth came out. Johnson and his family had to keep the plane’s cinematic future a secret.

Now that the film is in theaters, Johnson and his family were able to enjoy a special screening of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. He joked, “They asked me to do the flying, but they didn’t want to pay me enough.”