LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: The music for 'Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One' was a massive undertaking that involved more than 500 musicians across Europe, according to composer Lorne Balfe. He tells Variety that he began composing the score almost three years ago and recorded over 14 hours of music across Europe — including in Rome, Vienna, Venice, Switzerland, and London of which only a fraction made it to the film.

The film, which stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, pits him against a new enemy: The Entity, a sentient AI. Ethan must stop The Entity with a metal key while performing incredible stunts like driving a motorcycle off a cliff or fighting on a moving train. Balfe says the film also has emotional moments that inspired his music.

'You see a totally different side to Ethan'

“You see a totally different side to Ethan. You see someone who is protective and driven by different things, and that’s where that emotion came from,” he said as per the outlet. Balfe shared he embraced the iconic theme of the franchise, created by Lalo Schifrin in the 1960s, and used it throughout the film. He also reinvented Ethan’s theme by looking at composers like Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky. “It’s what the audience relates to and their connection with it, but it’s twisted differently … It was about taking that and delving into the emotional and tragic vocabulary,” he says.

'I had found the missing piece of the score’s DNA'

Balfe recorded the music in different locations where the film was shot, such as Rome, Vienna, Venice, Switzerland, and London. He said he wanted to involve the local community and discover new talent. One example was the 'Top Secret Drum Corps', a group of military drummers from Switzerland that director Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise had seen at the Queen’s Jubilee. “They’re military drummers and it was as if I had found the missing piece of the score’s DNA,” Balfe says. “I started involving them in the score where it becomes rhythmical and percussive.”

'There are many of us who made the soundtrack'

Balfe further said he had the luxury of time to experiment with the score, and he also worked on 'Top Gun: Maverick' in between. He also praises the music editor Cécile Tournesac for her creative role in adapting his music to different scenes. “There are many of us who made the soundtrack — the orchestrators and additional composers who helped get us to this line,” he says.