Crazy buckets popcorn are big business for cinemas

For decades, popcorn has been a key element of the film theater experience and the bottom lines of exhibitors. Now, the container in which it comes is becoming just as important.

Recently in three years ago, Entertainment amc He did not sell any goods. Last year she threw new buckets of popcorn, drank sippers and blouses in the amount of about $ 65 million.

“Started with us in a great way with our film, ‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’, which we released in October 2023 and we have sold only a tremendous number of popcorn buckets,” said Director General I AMC Adam Aron. “This prompted us to do it almost all the time … just literally every month.”

Other theater chains like Cinema, MarcusThe theaters Regal and B&B have also embraced buckets, using these specialty articles to run concession purchases, to create a sense of urgency to watch big movies in the opening of the weekend and adding value to the theatrical experience.

“Pas-Covid, we realized that the cinema event has never been as important as it is now,” said Paul Farnsworth, the Executive Director of Communication and Content at B&B theaters. “We knew during that time that the biggest victim for our industry was people simply left the habit of going to the movies.”

Hollywood production issues led to fewer theatrical omissions and smaller ticket sales in 2024, with cash bills down 3.4% from 2023 to $ 8.74 billion. Farnsworth noted that unique popcorn buckets can add value to a client’s journey to the cinema and creates a memory of travel that can be taken at home, set up on a screen rack or rebuild for the movie nights inside.

“It is very good for the end,” he said. “The great value for us is that people come in and there are these fun things they take to take home and they are taking pictures with them in the theater. There is a tremendous value in this.”

For Cinemark, the test of the concept came with the publication of “Scream VI” in 2023.

“We made a bucket” Scream “popcorn and she was completely surprised,” said Sean Gamble, Ceo i Cinemark. “This just had this big taking. We were immediately sold out of the thing and we were essentially selling them to people online afterwards.”

The memorial buckets of popcorn have long been part of the trading of the topic park, the income from the direction of the likes Disney AND Universal both domestically and internationally. However, US -based film theaters were late to adopt the trend.

The marketing and commodity company Zinc has designed and manufactured popcorn brand buckets and drinks Sippers for more than a decade internationally, but turned its state attention in 2016.

“Theaters were restrained because the cups did not fit into the holders,” said Rod Mason, Vice -President of Zin Group business development, one of the biggest players in the premiums of popcorn.

A change came in 2019 with a bucket of R2-D2 popcorn created for “Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker”, Mason said.

“AMC got a punch on it,” he explained. “They took many tens of thousands of pieces. They sold it through it in about three or four days at a very high price. Nothing like this had been done before, and it was like ‘ok, well, it works.” “

A rebuilt version of the bucket Droid Popcorn was reprinted for the 25th anniversary shows of “Star Wars: Episode 1-A Menace Phantom”.

The popcorn bucket and the combination of the drink cup was sold for $ 49.99.

However, the real watermark for the warm market came nearly five years later with a notorious bucket of popcorn in honor of “Dune: the second part”, released last March. The bucket was modeled after the sand worms featured in the film, but inspired raw comparisons with an adult product.

“The beauty of the bucket” Dune “was that it was simply not meant to be viral,” Mason said.

The $ 24.99 bucket was sold and found momentum in the secondary markets. Ebay admissions show these popcorn buckets sold for between $ 50 and $ 210 piece on the seller’s site.

“The popularity of popcorn buckets on social media combined with the perception of limited supply of popcorn buckets leads to a sense of ‘fear of loss’ among customers that are driven to buy buckets when [they] See them available, ”said Lindsay Brookshier, Director of Content in Online Disney Guide Mickeyvist.com.

Actor and producer “Dune” inspired “Deadpool & Wolverine” actor and producer Ryan Reynolds to design a soft popcorn bucket to publish his film.

“Years from now they will look back in 2024 after when the popcorn bucket war began,” Reynolds wrote in X to promote the concession container, which was in shape like Wolverine’s head with her mouth open to her sheltered popcorn.

The $ 29.99 bucket was exclusively available in AMC and was released on the same weekend as San Diego Comic-Con and the publication of the film “Deadpool & Wolverine”.

Studios and theaters have been more proactive to work with companies like zinc to create unique popcorn buckets for movie.

“It’s a very competitive business,” Mason said. “Everyone is trying to get out, and not just companies like us, but also companies who are buying it. They are trying to make sure they have the most delightful item … that competition has been enlarged over the past 12 months because there is so many eyes in this segment of business. “

And the film industry will have an influx of block titles now that production delays from pandemic and double shock to Hollywood are in the posterior mirror.

After “Captain America: Brave New World”, which debuted on Friday, the 2025 calendar has “Thunderbolts*”, “Mission: Impossible: Last Calculation”, “How to Work Your Dragon”, “Jurassic World Rilindja” , “Superman,” “Fantastic Four: First Steps”, “Wicked: For Good”, “Zotopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash”.

And 2026 has an equally promising link to buckets with a “Super Mario Bros.” Sequeel, “Avengers: Doomsday”, “The Mandorian and Grogu”, “Toy Story 5”, “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow”, “Minions 3”, “Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping”, “Ice Age 6” and “Shrek 5.”

“We’ve lost a couple,” said Farnsworth i B&B. “We didn’t have that crazy” dune “. But that was a kind of points depending on us. It was like,” Okay, we really have to pay attention. “”

B&B, the fifth -largest chain of cinema in America with 58 countries, still needs to be very deliberate for which products it offers and how much it buys. Films like “wicked”, with a massive integrated commodity audience, are a safer bet. But theaters have a very short window to sell specialty items.

“Unlike our normal popcorn bags, which are evergreen, if you do not sell [product]You will probably not sell them a month after the movie, ”said Farnsworth.

Meanwhile, AMC is investing more.

“One of the great things we are doing in 2025 is that we are significantly increasing the quantities,” Aron said, stressing that AMC was already ordering for 100,000 units or more. “We’re buying because there is no need for us to sell the opening day. There are many people coming to watch that movie for weeks and weeks.”

Discover: Comcast is the parent company of NBCuniversal and CNBC.