The trailer for Brad Bird’s installment of the Mission Impossible series is out and it’s looking pretty good. But maybe I’m just hyping it up because of that part where Tom Cruise runs down the world’s tallest building.

How old is this guy? 49? If that was me and I was 49, I’d be leaning all the way back slowly inching down the building nervously stuttering, “I’m not sure about this, guys. Is there a smaller building we can do this on?” Then I’d cry for my mommy.

The trailer for the upcoming Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol which was supposed to premiere before Transformers was leaked earlier. Now that it’s Wednesday, we get a high quality version.

The film, co-written by J.J. Abrams and directed by Brad Bird, stars Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner, Josh Holloway, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton and Ani Kapoor, hits theaters December 16.

It doesn’t look bad at all. Tom Cruise may be a nut and pushing 50 but damn if he doesn’t look cool jumping 10 stories from a building. *Flutters eyelashes*

Despite all the jokes about Tom Cruise, one thing is for sure, this dude has balls. He almost always does his own stunts and this is no exception.

Here he is jumping off the mid-section of the tallest skyscraper in the world. Tom was on top of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai which stands 2,717 feet tall to film scenes or maybe a promo for Mission Impossible 4: Mission Impossibler or something like that. A film crew in a helicopter buzzed ten feet away to catch the action.

Photographer Gerald Donovan tells Gizmodo that this was possibly for a promo and not for the film itself but, whatever, here’s how Tom got to the top:

1. He first took elevator BS1: Concourse (4.0 m.) to level 138 (508.2 m.)
2. Then got into elevator BS3: Level 138 to level 160 (621.3 m.)
3. From there, he got elevator BS4: Level 160 to section 18B (646.9 m.) You can also take the steep stairs/landings from 160 to 18B.
4. After that, he climbed the ladder from section 18B to section 19 (653.3 m.)
5. Went from section 19 to section 21 (691.7 m.) taking the steep stairs/landings.
6. Climbed the ladder inside the pinnacle pipe: Section 21 to top platform (826.6 m.)

I’d pee my pants after the first elevator ride. By the time I went to climb the ladder, I’d be shrieking like a girl and crying until two brave and strong fireman carried me down like a princess. “My, what big muscles you have Mr. Fireman.”

Josh Holloway from Lost was recently added to the cast of the next Mission Impossible movie. He’ll play a guy with long flowy hair. Fabio? Is Fabio in that movie? Well, anyway. Here’s Tom Cruise in Prague wearing a mustache filming for MI4. Doesn’t he look dapper? Am I using that word right? I’m not sure how thesauruses work.

The last few Tom Cruise movies (Valkryie, Lions for Lambs) didn’t do as well as studios were hoping. Probably because he was killing his image with all his craziness. Now that he’s calmed down a little, the solution for getting back his popularity? Another Mission Impossible movie! Tom will star in the fourth installment. By the time the film hits theaters in 2011, Tom will already be 48. Hopefully he doesn’t break a hip.

The first Mission Impossible was released 14 years ago in 1996. Tom Cruise was much more spry back then. This time around the studio should budget for nap time and whatever else it is aging celebrities like to do. Reminisce about the old days when their assistants had to trudge through three miles of snow to get them coffee?

[Cruise filming Knight and Day. Long Beach, January 27. Images via FAME.]

Tom Cruise will most likely not be reprising his role as Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible series. Slate notes that when Cruise’s people “reached out” to Paramount about doing a fourth installment of the popular franchise, Paramount asked if Cruise would like to produce. Meaning, they don’t want him to star in it. It wasn’t much of an offer either as Cruise’s contract already guaranteed him this right.

This tells us not to read too much into that supposed rapprochement between Cruise and Sumner Redstone. And it suggests that the fighting between Cruise and Paramount studio chief Brad Grey over the deal for M:I3 was a lot more rancorous than we knew at the time. We don’t want to keep you in suspense: Cruise’s answer was no. Our source tells us that Paramount met this with a shrug, since in the not-too-distant future the studio expects that it will be free, contractually, to make the movie without involving Cruise’s production company.

Meanwhile, Slate alleges the side-by-side photo of Tom Cruise and Claus von Stauffenberg, the guy Cruise plays in the upcoming movie Valkryie, have been doctored to make Cruise more closely resemble the German hero.

Apparently, Tom Cruise has finally achieved leper status. Can things get worse for this guy? Sure. He could arrive on set one day, forgetting to remove his butt plug. That would be embarrassing, but it would never happen. He has a note on his fridge that reads, “Remember to remove butt plug before leaving.”