Fine, I’ll Talk About The Souvenir Popcorn Buckets
From Dune to Deadpool, What Compels Us to Eat Out of Fictional Orifices? + Collectible Popcorn Vessel History
Dear reader, before we begin, I must let you know I am currently suffering from a popcorn hangover. Last night, I was sat in the cinema for a particularly lengthy film. By the time all was said and done, I had been in my theater seat for 4.5 hours. Needless to say, I absolutely binged on popcorn.
My kernel-filled stomach and I are still recovering, and so the popcorn hangover rears its ugly head once again. To those unfamiliar with this sensation, what’s it like to have will power?
Astute Film Flavor readers will note I wrote about the Dune: Part Two sandworm popcorn bucket that took the world by storm back in March.
Before 2024, my only knowledge of souvenir popcorn buckets and other concession stand movie merchandise was limited to meager cardboard popcorn buckets and drink cups with movie names printed on the outer wrapper in lieu of the theatre’s branding.
Oh, how small my worldview was!
As it turns out, branded popcorn buckets have a jumbo-sized, depraved history befitting of the plastic monstrosities.
A Brief History of Popcorn Buckets + Freshly Popped Packaging
Now, as of September 2024, if you were to ask Google about the history of popcorn buckets, the first thing you’d see is Google AI spreading misinformation…
Stunning. How did we ever live without the concise wisdom of artificial intelligence and its mastery of reading comprehension?
Lucky for you, I’ve scrolled a few pages deeper into the history of popcorn than Google’s failed pet project.
Those who have read my piece, Why Do We Eat Popcorn at Movie Theaters? (and its sequels, regarding candy, concession stands, snacks,pizza and drive-ins) will know the basics. Once banned from cinema, Great Depression-era theater owners finally “conceded” and begrudgingly allowed popcorn into their ornate movie palaces, before taking over the sales themselves.
Now, the true owner of the esteemed “First Popcorn Bucket” title remains a bit of a mystery.
Per Andrew F. Smith’s book, Popped Culture (a seminal work for all food-and-film lovers): In the 1890s, the first popcorn with branded packaging in boxes, unpopped, was sold by the Albert Dickinson Company to grocers. It was around this time when popcorn vendors — typically positioned at fairs, circuses, and crowded streets — gained the ability to pop popcorn fresh on-site, thanks to the advent steam-driven popcorn wagons. However, at this time, freshly-popped popcorn seemed to be only sold in bags made of paper, wax paper, and the like.
In fact, popcorn appears to have been served in “bags” up until serving sizes increased in America, in the post-World War II boom. With wartime rations a thing of the past, why not splurge on a large popcorn box?
Yes, boxes. By the late 1940s, Cardboard boxes were a serving vessel for freshly popped popcorn, too. Somewhere in between the 1950s and the 1990s, these boxes morphed into the circular popcorn buckets we know and love today.
To this author’s mind, these cardboard cylindrical popcorn tubs were the near peak of popcorn packaging potential. Sure, I’d like my large popcorn to be served in a slightly more hygienic and healthy way, but who wouldn’t?
Well, as it turns out, a large portion of modern moviegoers, that’s who.
The Dawn of the Plastic Movie Souvenir Popcorn Buckets
While the occasional movie-merchandise product has made its way to major movie theater chain concession stands since the 1980s, they didn’t enter the cultural zeitgeist until recently.
In the 1990s, Disney theme parks began selling novelty popcorn buckets, and the movie theater industry took note.
If you’re an avid sci-fi fan, the souvenir popcorn bucket likely came to your attention back in 2019, with the R2-D2 popcorn vessel, made available by AMC to promote Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker. The R2-D2 buckets sold out opening night, and it was clear the demand was high.
If you’re a swiftie, the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour plastic popcorn buckets of 2023 may have been the object of your affection.
If you’re a regular ol’ movie goer, these buckets likely came to your attention with the viral, much-memed Dune: Part Two Sandworm popcorn vehicle that was released earlier in 2024, and is currently listed by some Ebay sellers for $800+ U.S. dollars. Customers reached inside the fictional sandworm’s orifice (which function the orifice serves is up for debate), grab a handful of popped kernels, and lose about half of them on the way up as the sandworm’s rubbery teeth flick them out of the customer’s fingers. Ozempic wishes it could cut down your calories like this bad boy!
Before this madness goes any further, let’s pause and take a moment to review the design choices of novelty popcorn vehicle creators thus far.
Film Flavor’s Popcorn Vehicle 2024 WTF Compendium: In Review
A short review of this year’s wildest collectible popcorn vessels to date…
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) Popcorn Buckets
If you ever met a superhero in real life, would your first instinct be to reach inside their mouth and eat a handful of whatever you find inside?
Well, you’re not alone. Apparently, this has been the dream of many a Marvel-phile. AMC has fulfilled the dreams of many by creating this monstrosity.
Cinemark is also offering a Deadpool & Wolverine popcorn bucket. It’s design utilizes horizontal breadth as oppose to AMC’s affinity for orifice-lids, which Film Flavor appreciates. Both buckets are available on pre-order.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) Sandworm Popcorn Buckets
Ophidiophobics, steer clear of Regal Cinemas this fall. The movie theater chain has been slinging plastic sandworms wrapped around your favorite concessions snack. They’re currently sold out of these evil creatures, though I’m sure they’ve still got a few on display. We here at Film Flavor actually appreciate this design quite a bit. Simple, unobstructing to the eating of popcorn, novel. We don’t hate it!
Cinemark is again, offering their version, still up for sale: A “jack-in-the-box” style bucket, that lights up BRAT green and features drawbridge-esque door to reveal your kernels. Again, we don’t mind this design!
Overall, the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice popcorn bucket designers get a “B” grade here.
Alien: Romulus (2024) Alien Head Popcorn Container
Regal Cinemas also made headlines for its Alien: Romulus popcorn bucket shaped like a xenomorph extraterrestrial’s head. Instead of eating out of its mouth, patrons are asked to open its head and chow down. Those who wish to stay away from popcorn-brains also had the option of purchasing the chain’s light up “Specimen” container.
Of the two — while we’re normally opposed to eating out of heads — the alien head is such a big swing, we dig it. It does beg the question, though: Do people actually eat out of these things in the theater?
Despicable Me 4 (2024) Mega Mel Popcorn Container
AMC is currently selling a popcorn container shaped like a minion. Patrons simply unlatch its back and eat popcorn out of its rear end. And they say chivalry is dead!
More famously, Universal created a minion baby-carrier-style popcorn vessel that has taken the internet by storm and is, as far as I know, only available to lucky contest and sweepstakes winners. The popcorn bucket/baby appears to be non-monogamous when it comes to theater chains, being offered by multiple of the largest theater chains in promotion of the film.
For Film Flavor, there’s no doubt about it: The baby carrier takes the cake on this one. Sorry, butt-popcorn lovers!
Other Honorable Mentions…
Some additional popcorn vessels of note from the past few years include…
The Inside Out 2 Memory Orb Popcorn / Drink vessel with collectable figurines
The Barbie Movie Corvette Popcorn Vehicle
The Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Ghost Trap Popcorn Container
The Wonka Movie Popcorn Tub shaped like a (chocolate?) top hat
These ones are some of the cutest I’ve seen. If was going to dress up as a Ghost Buster for Halloween, I would actually purchase the Ghost Trap one.
But where on earth are people keeping these collectable novelty snack tubs? Last I checked, the economy wasn’t doing so hot. How are you all paying for the square footage to keep these space-suckers? I don’t even know if my kitchen cabinets have enough room to store one of these, let alone display it gloriously. I hear people don’t even reuse them, or use them for popcorn at all. And then there’s the matter of how to wash them…
Before my brain melts any further, lets continue…
What Popcorn Buckets will 2024 Q4 Bring?
Due to the nature of marketing budgets — and, what I imagine is a credit-card-swipe-happy audience — big-budget blockbuster films are the main perpetrators of movie tie-in popcorn buckets, cups, and other concession merch.
Film Flavor predicts films based on comic book IP, like the anticipated Joker: Folie à Deux and Venom sequels -- will surely have some sort of concessions merch. Probably Wicked as well.
The rest is murky at best. Will cinemas go beyond typical blockbusters and start slinging novel Oscar-contender buckets?
Will we cinema-goers be obliged to pry open the curls of Bob Dylan / Timothee Chalamet’s plastic head to reveal our favorite salty treat, in promotion of the upcoming biopic A Complete Unknown?
Will patrons need to scratch their fingernails on a twelve-foot coffin (Designed in California, Made in Vietnam, of course) to reveal their concessions as a tie-in with Robert Egger’s anticipated Nosferatu, out Christmas Day?
Will this author be forced to explain to their older family members why their fellow cinephiles are reaching into the mouth of acclaimed opera singer Maria Callas, who looks just like Angelina Jolie, while waiting to watch Pablo Larraín’s latest film Maria?
Look, I don’t have the answers, I’m just asking the questions here.
Please Leave a Comment and Let Us Know:
Have you ever purchased a Souvenir Popcorn Bucket? Which ones have piqued your interest? 👇
In Case You Missed It…
Want more movie food? The #1 way you can support Film Flavor is by subscribing and sharing this post with friends via the buttons below!
And, if I haven’t told you lately, THANK YOU to all of our latest subscribers. Your support means the world to me, and I am honored to be in your inbox!
With gratitude,
—
Via Marsh
The thought of a Bob Dylan one 🤣I never make it in time for the buckets and now it has become an unhealthy obsession! Thank you for this!