Tom Cruise Makes Surprising Appearance in Peacock’s New Christmas Movie

Tom Cruise can pop up in places you’d least expect – including in films he’s not even actually in! 

Case in point (MINOR SPOILER) Cruise shows up in Peacock’s new Melissa McCarthy comedy film, Genie (2023), in a scene where McCarthy’s genie character, Flora, experiences cinema for the first time by going to see Mission: Impossible – an experience that leaves Flora imprinted with a little crush on Tom Cruise. A moment of Cruise on M:I was shown to create the scene where Flora sees the movie. 

Genie writer Richard Curtis explained that they definitely had to jump through the hoops of getting Tom Cruise and Paramount’s permission to feature the actor and the Mission: Impossible franchise in their film: 

“We definitely had to ask him [for permission],” Curtis told PEOPLE. “I mean, we asked him through his people. I’m lucky enough to know Tom a bit. He’s always been very sweet to me. And we worked on a film for a while, which didn’t happen.”

“I don’t know whether it’s a favor to me and Melissa or whether someone in the mail room said, ‘This sounds okay,’  But it means that after all these years, I’ve at last made a Tom Cruise movie.”

Tom Cruise has made seven Mission: Impossible movies, to date. The latest one was Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, which was released in theaters this past summer. Mission: Impossible 7 didn’t exactly light up the box office, earning just $567.5 million on a budget of a whopping $291M. Of course, the price of Mission: Impossible 7 was inflated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which cut through director Christopher McQuarrie’s production on the film, and Dead Reckoning – Part One ultimately took three years to go from shooting to theatrical release. A highly-crowded slate of summer 2023 films also likely had an effect on Mission: impossible’s earnings, as its theatrical predecessor Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny earned well at the box office, and the Barbenheimer double-feature event earned milestone profits immediately thereafter. 

If nothing else, Genie is helping Mission: Impossible get back into the conversation. 

What Is Genie (2023) About? 

Genie “is a fairy-tale comedy about a workaholic man who enlists the help of a magical genie to help win his family back before Christmas.” The movie stars Melissa McCarthy, Paapa Essiedu, Denée Benton, Alan Cumming, Mark Maron, Tate Ellington, LaChanze, SNL’s Ego Nwodim, Luis Guzmán and others.