While Ethan Hunt’s time leading the Mission: Impossible movie series is probably over, I’m never getting over all the behind-the-scenes stories about the franchise. Tom Cruise has a reputation of being fearless in those movies. And Ghost Protocol director Brad Bird just shared one nerve-wracking story about the making of the 2011 fan-favorite. Brad Bird (who also helmed The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille) had his own panel at San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H on Thursday night. During the sprawling conversation about his career that CinemaBlend was in attendance for, here’s what he recalled about making Ghost Protocol with Tom Cruise: We were prepping [Ghost Protocol], and he was practicing being on the building with this climbing expert who was out there. And we were just kinda hanging around and talking while he's out there. And suddenly, I hear, ‘Woo!’ And, I see him go outside the window swinging past. And then I hear a crash, and I'm like, ‘Ahhh, he's dead! The star is dead!’ And then, I hear him laughing like ‘I screwed that one up, you know?’It’s incredibly nail-biting to watch Tom Cruise accomplish the stunts he’s done on the Mission: Impossible movies alone. But I never thought of how that might feel from a director’s point of view. As Bird communicated, being in proximity with Cruise while shooting Ghost Protocol was not for the faint of heart. Here’s what he had to say about filming the famous Burj Khalifa scene: We were originally thinking we might only get a few shots in IMAX, maybe two or three and then we’ll do the rest in special effects. So, we had to bash out these giant double-paned windows, and they were like, ‘OK, but only three and you gotta put them back exactly like they were.’ And we’re like, ‘OK, we’ll do it.’ So we start doing it, and [think] ‘We can probably get this shot over here’. Pretty soon, it’s 37 windows. And, we shot everything on the building. The only ones we didn't do on the buildings were ones that were looking up, because you can do that on a piece of anything.If you didn’t know already, Ghost Protocol was actually shot on location in the Burj Khalifa, which is the the tallest building in the world. The structure in Dubai stands 2,717 feet tall. In the scene, Ethan Hunt must scale the Burj Khalifa in order to intercept an exchange of nuclear launch codes happening on the 130th floor. While the production originally was only going to film a few shots there, nearly the whole sequence was shot at the Burj Khalifa. And it was done for IMAX! But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a stress test for Brad Bird. As he added: There was one time where we were filming it, I was dead asleep in my hotel, it’s like four in the morning and suddenly I go ‘Ahh!’ and I realize my star is swinging around on this little wire a mile up into the air, and what am I doing? This is insane! But, he’s the producer, so you can’t tell him no. The next time I’m worn over work, I’m going to think about Brad Bird. At least I’m not responsible for Tom Cruise and his stunt antics – I’m just writing about it! If you’re itching to rewatch Ghost Protocol after this story, it’s streaming with a Paramount+ subscription. And, if you’re curious what Brad Bird is up to, he has a new animated film on the 2026 movie release schedule. It’s called Ray Gunn, and it’s a science-fiction noir movie he’s been wanting to make for 30 years. The new Brad Bird film is coming to Netflix on December 18.