For Abrams, bringing a more personal feel to the movie was the only way he was going to take on the project. Acclaimed for creating hit TV shows Alias, Felicity and Lost, doing a full-on action movie just wasn't his style.

Abrams says that Cruise sent him the Mission: Impossible III script a couple of years ago to see if he'd consider doing the job. Abrams read it, and told him there were other directors far better suited for it than he was. 'I told him I'd want to do a more personal and emotional story. Tom said, 'Go write that script.' I told him I was tied up for the next year, and they were all set to start shooting in two months. He said, 'We'll wait for you.' The whole thing was crazy.'

Abrams says the pressure was tremendous to come up with something different from the first two, yet still encompassing the trademark Mission elements. 'I'm so glad that nobody told me when we were shooting that this was the most expensive Mission: Impossible movie,' he says, referring to the reported US$150 million budget. 'All my friends said to me, 'Are you sure you want to do this?' But Tom said to me, 'I want this to be your movie. I'm the actor, but you're the director.''

The latest incarnation has everything one would expect of a Mission: Impossible - incredible stunts, spectacular chases, mind-blowing gadgets, and glamorous locations. But, in the hands of Abrams, there's something more: an intensity that goes beyond bombs and guns, in moments of raw emotion.

In Abrams' script (he shares writing credits with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci), Cruise's Ethan Hunt starts off the movie trying to save the world, but ends up needing to save just one person.

With the experience now behind him, and the movie opening worldwide early next month, Abrams says that making the film has spoiled him for anything else that might follow. 'Just in terms of being supportive, Tom and Paula let me write it, cast it, crew it, direct it,' he says.

Given a free rein with casting, Abrams opted for less obvious choices. The cast includes Keri Russell, who had the lead in Felicity.

'I'd been dying to work with her again,' says Abrams. 'She's brilliant and lovely.' Then there was Laurence Fishburne: 'There's no one who doesn't want to work with him. He brought the gravitas.' Michelle Monaghan, who landed the coveted role of Hunt's fiancee, was chosen because she had a 'relatable quality. She's beautiful, but not fake beautiful. She comes across as a capable, real person'. Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the villain, and British actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers is a tactical team member working with Cruise's character.

Billy Crudup was selected because 'you can't go wrong. He has the driest sense of humour', and Ving Rhames appears again because of his character's friendship with Hunt. 'You want to feel like they have a long-time friendship,' says Abrams. Hong Kong-based actress Maggie Quigley landed the other strong female role in the film, that of tactical team member Zhen. Abrams picked her because he liked her sophistication.

The cast in place, the complex shooting schedule began. The movie was partly filmed in Rome, where Cruise first went public about his relationship with Katie Holmes, with whom he's just had a baby girl, Suri.

There were three units on the go, travelling between Rome and the Palazzo Reale di Caserta near Naples, which doubles as the Vatican in a stunning scene in the movie. Then there are dramatic shots in Shanghai - from the city's skyscrapers to Xitang, a 1,000-year-old fishing village in Zhejiang province. Much of the film was also shot in Los Angeles, and there were units in Germany and Virginia.

'There were the inevitable challenges of moving around crews and the cast and building sets all over the world,' says Wagner. 'It takes so much time and so much money to accomplish it, working with various governments and getting permission. The whole thing with film production is that there are many unexpected problems.

'My job is to solve them quickly and efficiently, and to try to anticipate them before they happen. As in every film of this nature, the creative process is one that is trial and error. But we started shooting a week early, and finished two days early.'

Although constantly putting out fires might sound like a nightmarish way to spend several months, Wagner says that making Mission: Impossible III was a pleasure. 'It was one of the best experiences Tom and I have had together. There were a lot of laughs, and we had a lot of fun.'

And does all the press - much of it cynical - about Cruise's much-hyped relationship with Holmes, his preaching about Scientology and his reported taking of anti-depressants affect things at all?

Wagner says she takes it all in her stride. 'I can only look at his career, and the tremendous influence he's had in the world,' she says, recalling the huge crowds that appeared wherever they filmed, hoping to catch a glimpse of the actor. 'In China, people came out and called him 'Brother Tom'. That's how they saw him.'