18 months after Tom Cruise declared his love for popcorn, he's contributing to cinema's unlikeliest trend with a Mission: Impossible popcorn bucket

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

(Image credit: Paramount)

Dune, Deadpool and, now, Mission: Impossible? The Tom Cruise-led action franchise may not be the most obvious candidate to continue cinema's unlikely popcorn bucket trend, but it's apparently happening in preparation for the release of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

According to AMC's director of food and beverage strategy Rob Bennett in a piece by TIME, Cruise "helped to guide the design" of an upcoming bucket, which will release in line with The Final Reckoning. The only tease? Bennett saying his team "nailed it".

Those of us who are terminally online – myself included – will fondly reminisce about Cruise's "I love my popcorn. Movies… popcorn" video in the lead-up to 2023's Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (which has since dropped the 'Part One' from its title). Now, we can act out our own Cruise-style popcorn poetry.

For so long cinema's ultimate trendsetter, Cruise, is following a path laid down by Dune earlier this year with its sandworm-shaped popcorn bucket – which became the subject of social media conversation and memes for weeks after release. That, in turn, led to several imitators, from Venom, Deadpool and Wolverine, and even Gladiator 2.

Mission: Impossible, meanwhile, is gearing up for what appears to be the closing chapter in Ethan Hunt's cinematic career. The first Final Reckoning trailer made good on that air of finality, while also hiding a surprise Mission: Impossible 3 callback that had fans' minds – and their theories – racing.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Vanessa Kirby, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, and Pom Klementieff, hits cinemas on May 23, 2025. Discover more of what's headed your way with our guides to upcoming movies. Then your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to dive into our ranking of the best Mission: Impossible movies.

I'm the Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, focusing on news, features, and interviews with some of the biggest names in film and TV. On-site, you'll find me marveling at Marvel and providing analysis and room temperature takes on the newest films, Star Wars and, of course, anime. Outside of GR, I love getting lost in a good 100-hour JRPG, Warzone, and kicking back on the (virtual) field with Football Manager. My work has also been featured in OPM, FourFourTwo, and Game Revolution.