Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz's original script killed the original IMF team including Peter Graves; a near-bankrupt Apple tied in with PowerBooks and a web adventure game; the Langley heist homages Dassin's Topkapi and Rififi; Ethan Hunt's name may honor Watergate's Howard Hunt
The original script came from two earlier writers. Katz and Huck (Gloria and Willard, as transcribed) reportedly opened it with the original IMF team, including Peter Graves, on a mission with their youngest member played by Cruise, all killed except him, leaving him to solve who killed his team, which may be another reason the older stars did not return.
Apple was almost bankrupt at release and tried to get cool again through a corporate tie-in, with PowerBook laptops in the movie, plus an early promotional website called the Mission Impossible Web Adventure, sinking about $15 million into it; things worked out for Apple.
The Langley heist homages the Jules Dassen (as transcribed) classics Top Copy and Rafifi (as transcribed); some think Ethan Hunt's name is a sly tribute to Howard Hunt, the former CIA spy involved in the Watergate break-in, and Ethan Hunt is called a perfect, anonymous yet fun-to-say name.
There are not many casting what-ifs because the movie was put together by Cruise and Wagner; Juliette Binoche turned down Claire because she did not want to be known for blockbusters, which worked out for her, and it would have been a funny coincidence with Kristen Scott Thomas in two well-seen 1996 movies in the year of The English Patient.
Peter Graves and Martin Landau from the original series turned down roles after reading the script; Graves did not care for Jim Phelps being the villain and Landau thought it got away from what made the show good, though the hosts wonder whether the roles were smaller than they wanted and joke about Landau feeling himself after his 1994 Oscar.
Since Claire did not have to be European, Demi Moore is floated as a reunion with Cruise after A Few Good Men; sex scenes between Claire and Ethan were written and cut, a kiss appears in the trailer that is not in the film, and despite the grabbing and handsiness and an implied night together there is not much chemistry.
1996 was the year of Striptease for Demi Moore, so it would have been a left turn; Claire is called an underwritten part and one of the weakest aspects, a Russian doll for Jim's motivations in a Hitchcockian way; Susan Sarandon is also mentioned, but the objection is that Moore is too visceral and signals a fight scene is coming, whereas Claire's sphinx-like quality serves the narrative, so maybe Emmanuel Bayer (as transcribed) is right for it after all.
