UK Government To Exempt Tom Cruise and MI Crew From Quarantine

Variety.com: The U.K. government is to exempt some leading U.S. actors, such as Tom Cruise, and crew from its 14-day travel quarantine to allow Hollywood blockbusters to resume production.

The move follows a conversation between culture secretary Oliver Dowden and Cruise earlier this week about restarting filming on the latest “Mission: Impossible” movies.

The seventh and eighth instalment of “Mission: Impossible” – starring and produced by Cruise – are in production at Warner Bros Studios Leavesden, near London.

Dowden said: “The world’s biggest blockbusters and high-end TV shows are made in Britain. Our creativity, expertise and highly successful tax reliefs for our screen industries means that we are an in demand location that in turn delivers a great return for our economy. We want the industry to bounce back and exempting small numbers of essential cast and crew from quarantine is part of our continued commitment to getting cameras rolling safely again.”

Adrian Wootton, chief executive of the British Film Commission, said: “Today’s immensely welcome news is also a clear recognition of the importance of the film and high-end TV inward investment sector to the UK’s economy.”

“The sector was worth over £3 billion in 2019, and has a clear role to play in our economic recovery following the lockdown.”

Ben Roberts, chief executive of the British Film Institute, said: “Film and television are worth £9.9 billion to the U.K. economy and being able to get production back up and running as quickly as possible is going to help our industry and its 77,000 production workers contribute to the U.K.’s economic recovery.”