the Kiev sequence. Morgan Deare as Donald Hunt, Ethan's uncle who is falsely arrested in an attempt to lure him out. Production Development and writing Paramount Pictures owned the rights to the television series and had tried for years to make a film version but had failed to come up with a viable treatment. Tom Cruise had been a fan of the show since he was young and thought that it would be a good idea for a film. The actor chose Mission: Impossible to be the inaugural project of his new production company and convinced Paramount to put up a $70 million budget. Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner, worked on a story with filmmaker Sydney Pollack for a few months when the actor hired Brian De Palma to direct. While working on Interview with the Vampire, Cruise met De Palma during a dinner with Steven Spielberg and was impressed by his filmography, so when he went back home, he saw all De Palma's films and convinced himself to have De Palma hired to direct Mission: Impossible. They went through two screenplay drafts that no one liked. De Palma brought in screenwriters Steve Zaillian, David Koepp, and finally Robert Towne. When the film was green-lit Koepp was initially fired with Robert Towne being the lead writer and Koepp being brought back on later. According to the director, the goal of the script was to "constantly surprise the audience." Reportedly, Koepp was paid $1 million to rewrite an original script by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz. According to one project source, there were problems with dialogue and story development. However, the basic plot remained intact. The film went into pre-production without a script that the filmmakers wanted to use. De Palma designed the action sequences, but neither Koepp nor Towne were satisfied with the story that would make these sequences take place. Towne ended up helping organize a beginning, middle, and end to hang story details on while De Palma and Koepp worked on the plot. De Palma convinced Cruise to set the first act of the film in Prague, a city rarely seen in Hollywood films at the time. Reportedly, studio executives wanted to keep the film's budget in the $40–50 million range. Still, Cruise wanted a "big, showy action piece" that took the budget up to $62 million range. The scene that takes place in a glass-walled