Tom Cruise has a reputation for being involved in all aspects of the movies he makes. While his most famous contribution outside of acting is that he insists on doing all of his own stunts, it turns out he really gets involved in all of the details of his movies. He even vetoed the original popcorn bucket design for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.
In a story from Empire (via Comicbook.com), AMC’s Director of Food and Beverage Product Strategy Rob Bennet reveals that the initial plan was to make a bucket that would have been in the shape of the movie’s submarine, which houses the rogue AI causing all the trouble. However, producers, of which Tom Cruise was one, didn’t like it. He explained…
We wanted to incorporate the movie’s submarine [The Sevastopol], but Cruise and the producers said no, so we had to go back to the drawing board.
It’s not clear what Cruise and company didn’t like about the submarine design. It’s an idea that’s on par with a lot of the recent creations in popcorn bucket design that we have seen. Any sort of closed structure that can have a hatch for the popcorn seems to be fair game. Some of them get absolutely wild.
And all we got instead was a standard bucket with a scary-looking eye on it. In this case it was the eye of The Entity, the AI program at the heart of the film. But it could easily be confused for the Eye of Sauron were it not for the Mission: Impossible logo across the front. It’s honestly pretty dull. I’d rather have a submarine.
Even if the submarine design had its flaws, it’s certainly more creative than a simple bucket with a picture on it. Popcorn buckets have become things that fans collect, and the more unique, the better. A submarine is going to look cooler sitting on your shelf.
However, this situation with the Dead Reckoning popcorn bucket apparently got Tom Cruise very excited about the topic. As a result, Cruise was directly involved in the design of the bucket that’s on the way for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Tom Cruise certainly has a flair for the dramatic, as evidenced by his wild stunts. One can only imagine just what sort of wild, but likely brilliant, take he would have when designing a popcorn bucket.
What the bucket will be hasn’t been revealed yet. That’s still being kept secret for now but will likely drop before the May 23 release date of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. It seems that everybody is quite happy with whatever the design is. Popcorn bucket fans should probably start to get excited.