When it comes to movies, Tom Cruise does almost everything right. He delivered what many consider to be the best of the recent legacy sequels with Top Gun: Maverick. He entertained the world with a high-flying stunt at the conclusion of the Paris Olympic Games. And he’s bracing to conclude the two-part story he started in the Mission: Impossible series when Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning arrives in theaters in the summer of 2026.
So when we hear that Tom Cruise is setting his sights on making the ultimate popcorn bucket on behalf of the eighth Mission: Impossible movie, we can’t help but believe it’s going to be the most incredible example of the recent movie marketing we have ever seen.
This tasty morsel comes to us courtesy of a Time Magazine article about the recent trend of headline-grabbing popcorn buckets, tailor-made for blockbuster movies. While we don’t have details about what the Mission: Impossible bucket will deliver, AMC Theatres director of food and beverage product strategy told Time that the chain was collaborating directly with Cruise on the commemorative keepsake, and offered this much regarding the partnership:
We nailed it.
Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to arrive in theaters when the upcoming 2025 movie Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning drops, and plunk down some coin for whatever popcorn bucket Cruise and the marketing team have cooked up. Given the immediacy of the Mission series, my guess would be that the popcorn bucket will resemble some type of detonation device, possibly with an actual ticking clock on it. That might be distracting in a darkened theater. But as Time points out, the popcorn bucket for Inside Out 2 was modeled after the emotion Anger, and lit up red as a result.
I’m not 100% sure which popcorn bucket started this craze, but I have to believe it was the Dune 2 snack container, which went viral for reasons that have nothing to do with popcorn.
But since the Dune sequel broke onto the scene with its popcorn bucket, several other blockbusters have followed in its sandworm tracks. Deadpool and Wolverine created a popcorn bucket that had Logan’s mouth shaped in a sexual pose. Alien: Romulus, IT, and Terrifier 3 all went for scares with their popcorn buckets. And we all want one of the Nosferatu coffins that are going to be in theaters in December, alongside Gladiator 2 and Wicked.
Now, we wait. It will be several months before Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning arrives in theaters. Let’s use the time to wisely plan out our snacks, and accept the popcorn bucket, as soon as it’s available to snag.