Tom Cruise is known for his passion for the movie-going experience as well as his dedication to his movies. You can now add “popcorn bucket designer” to his title.
While a custom-made popcorn bucket designed to emulate a certain movie isn’t a new development, the trend has certainly spiked this year after the viral sensation of the Dune: Part 2 sandworm bucket that garnered many jokes online. One movie that definitely capitalized off Dune‘s suggestive imagery was Deadpool & Wolverine, as they made a bucket where the entry was the oversized mouth of Wolverine. This year also saw custom popcorn buckets for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Alien: Romulus, Gladiator II, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and even a special Batman one to commemorate the character’s 85th anniversary.
Time has revealed that not only will there be a special edition popcorn bucket for next year’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, but Tom Cruise himself had helped to design it. According to Rob Bennett, the director of food and beverage product strategy at AMC, Cruise would be instrumental in guiding the design of the bucket and while it hasn’t yet been revealed, he would gleefully tease, “We nailed it.”
Cruise is known for being both passionate about the theater-going experience and going the extra mile in participating in the making of his movies. He’s famous for partaking in the death-defying stunts himself and would recently share behind-the-scenes footage of an underwater sequence. His caption would read, “The training and preparation we put into this film is a culmination of all before it. From the depths, to the skies, I can’t wait to share more with you.”
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning tells the second half of the story that began in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, with Ethan Hunt out to destroy an AI system called The Entity, which is housed in a sunken Russian stealth submarine.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and Dead Reckoning writer/director Christopher McQuarrie remains at the helm, working from a screenplay he crafted with Erik Jendresen.
Cruise is being joined in the cast by Hayley Atwell, reprising her Dead Reckoning role of thief-turned-IMF-recruit Grace; Vanessa Kirby as arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis, a.k.a. the White Widow, a character who was previously seen in both Fallout and Dead Reckoning; Ving Rhames as IMF agent Luther Stickell, who has been part of this franchise since the first Mission: Impossible movie in 1996; Simon Pegg as IMF agent Benji Dunn, who joined the party back in Mission: Impossible III; Henry Czerny as CIA director Eugene Kittridge, who was introduced in Mission: Impossible (1996) and finally made his long-awaited return in Dead Reckoning; Rolf Saxon as William Donloe, a CIA analyst who got in trouble after Ethan Hunt accessed his computer way back in the first Mission: Impossible; and more Dead Reckoning reprisals: Esai Morales as the Entity-serving terrorist Gabriel; Pom Klementieff as Gabriel’s former ally Paris; Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis as US Intelligence agents Briggs and Degas; Mariela Garriga as Marie, a mysterious woman from Ethan and Gabriel’s past; Mark Gatiss and Charles Parnell as the heads of the NSA and NRO;. There are also a handful of new additions to the franchise: Holt McCallany as Secretary of Defense Bernstein; Nick Offerman as Sydney, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Katy O’Brian, Stephen Oyoung, Tramell Tillman, Janet McTeer, Hannah Waddingham, and Lucy Tulugarjuk in unspecified roles.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is set to reach theaters on May 23, 2025.
