Standing in her kitchen, Nicole Fontanez let out a gasp as she opened a cardboard box, revealing a plastic figure of Yoshi, Mario's dinosaur friend. The bulky toy held a hollow, polka-dotted egg.
Fontanez, 31, and her husband, Brian Fontanez, 36, were filming their reactions while introducing the latest addition to their newest collection of popcorn buckets for their YouTube channel, “Our Guilty Collections,” where they chat about movies and memories.
“It almost looks like a toy, something they would give you [at a] Toys 'R' Us,” he said in the video.
“This is definitely a showpiece,” he added. “There is no popcorn in the egg.”
at a time when cinemas are struggling to sell ticketsexhibitors are banking on increasingly elaborate popcorn buckets, like the $50 Yoshi container, to capitalize on millennial nostalgia, generate movie buzz and ultimately boost profits.
The popcorn bucket business was in full swing in the run-up to the premiere of “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” on Wednesday. In addition to Yoshi, theaters are selling star-shaped Luma cubes for $45, which light up and come in various colors. There are also mini Bowser kettles capable of holding five to 11 kernels of popcorn. The $8 cauldron set a world record for the smallest container of popcorn.
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The booming cube business
Disney began selling simple souvenir popcorn buckets in the 1990s and in 2010 introduced a 3D container inspired by Micky Mouse. But in recent years, the novel popcorn bucket business has reached new heights and expanded into movie theaters.
Fan-favorite popcorn receptacles include the pink convertible bucket released for the “Barbie” movie, an open-mouthed Wolverine bucket for “Deadpool & Wolverine” and “Fantastic Four: First Steps.” Galactus-shaped cubewhich, at almost $80, is the largest and most expensive container of popcorn ever made. Some have even gone viral, like the “Dune 2” bucket of sandworms parodied on “Saturday Night Live” for its resemblance to a sex toy.
Movie theaters sold Wolverine cubes to promote the 2024 film “Deadpool & Wolverine.” The container was designed to allow viewers to reach into the character's open mouth and grab a handful of popcorn.
(Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images)
AMC Theaters made its foray into 3D novelties in 2019, when it began selling collectible R2-D2 droids to promote “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” said vice president Nels Storm, who oversees food and beverage product strategy at the chain.
“We began to enter this world carefully because it was new. [and the buckets] They were expensive to produce,” Storm said. The “Star Wars” buckets sold out quickly, so the company took it as a sign that guests wanted more “tangible movie memorabilia,” he said.
In 2023, the Leawood, Kansas company sold collectible concession boats (the industry term for buckets) for nine movies. In 2026, AMC plans to sell ships for more than 40 movies. Storm said AMC locations have seen an increase in movie theater attendance when the popular cubes are released. AMC's merchandise sales, driven primarily by collector concession boats, totaled about $54 million in 2023 and have increased since then, spokesman Ryan Noonan said.
Cinemark Theatres, which began experimenting with creative bins around the same time as AMC, has also poured resources into expanding its popcorn bucket business. The Plano, Texas, company plans to sell containers for about 10 movies in 2026, said Cinemark Senior Vice President David Haywood, who oversees food and beverage. “Super Mario” was a natural choice.
“One thing about people who work in this industry is that we're all a bunch of nerds,” Haywood said. “We looked for some things that we love, and Mario really holds a special place in the hearts of many generations, from the first Nintendo to the kids who grew up and played on their Wii.”
The fancy buckets are expensive to produce, but Cinemark finds them worth it because they increase sales of popcorn and soda, he said.
“From a marginal point of view, it's probably not the brightest thing in the world,” Haywood said. But “one thing we really appreciate is how much fun and joy it brings to the experience… At the end of the day, that's all we do here as a movie theater, right? We're here to sell that joy.”
A small container inspired by Bowser's cauldron set the record for the world's smallest popcorn container in March. The collectible, which contains five to 11 popcorn kernels, was a collaboration between Illumination, Nintendo, Universal Pictures and Zinc Group to promote the new Mario movie.
(Madison Miles / Universal Pictures, Nintendo and Illumination)
Limited releases increase excitement
For some collectors, scarcity is part of the appeal. On the day the Yoshi's Cube was going to drop, Brian Fontanez woke up two hours earlier than usual and repeatedly refreshed Cinemark's product website in hopes of snagging one before scalpers could snatch up the stock.
“I got lucky with this one,” as the bucket sold out within an hour, he told The Times by phone. Although Cinemark is accepting pre-orders, the next batch won't ship until August, according to the company's website.
The first bucket the Fontanezes bought was Billy the puppet from the horror movie “Saw X.” Also in her collection is a “Scream 7” cube with Ghostface bursting through a door, which Nicole Fontanez plans to use as a vase, and a crystal ball featuring Madame Leota, the ghostly fortune teller from Disney's “Haunted Mansion.” The Cranford, New Jersey, couple estimates they have spent more than $500 on buckets since they started collecting them in 2023.
“It's a way to commemorate… the movies that we love and show them, obviously for ourselves, but also for the people who come or watch our videos,” Nicole Fontanez said.
Some moviegoers, like Yuba City resident Mark Sullivan, will travel far in search of cubes.
Sullivan, 40, said in an email that he once drove more than two hours to a Bay Area movie theater to buy a bucket of dragon-head popcorn released in conjunction with 2023's “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” only to learn that the theater was sold out minutes before he arrived. He saw the movie anyway and then bought one from an eBay reseller for a premium.
Sullivan, a hospital mobility technician, started a Facebook group for popcorn bucket collectors in 2024. The group, which focuses specifically on movie theater bins, not theme park buckets, now has more than 15,000 members sharing tips on how to get new drops, trade or resell buckets, or simply display their collections. Sullivan said the group gains thousands of new members every time a horror movie releases a container.
Haywood said that while Cinemark has increased the number of popcorn buckets it orders to keep up with growing demand, it can be difficult to predict months before the movie's release which ones will be a hit with fans.
AMC tries to make sure all of its ships sell out because it generates excitement among fans, Storm said.
“We want to have enough,” Storm added. “In some cases we miss a little and in others we miss a lot.”
Yoshi's Popcorn Bucket features Mario's green, dinosaur-like sidekick holding a hollow egg with a small plastic door that opens so it can be filled with popcorn.
(Mark Sullivan)
Popcorn Once a Lifeline for Struggling Movie Theaters
Popcorn became a favorite movie snack during the 1930s, as theaters looked for new sources of revenue during the Great Depression, said film historian Ross Melnick, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Before that, most U.S. movie theaters did not allow food or drinks inside auditoriums because they wanted to preserve their carpets, rugs and upholstered seats, Melnick said.
After the Wall Street crash of 1929, theater attendance plummeted as patrons looked for ways to cut spending. In an attempt to survive, movie theaters lowered ticket prices, introduced incentives such as tableware giveaways and began selling concessions, which people previously bought from nearby vendors or candy stores, Melnick said.
Around the same time, popcorn was making an appearance, fueled by an increase in American corn production and the popularity of the snack among soldiers. Initially, the snack was sold in small bags, but cardboard boxes and cylindrical containers later became the norm in movie theaters, probably because the containers made no noise when accessed and were less likely to spill butter, Melnick said.
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According to Melnick, collectible popcorn containers may be popular now due to the growing interest in analog living, as well as the growth of vinyl. Digital tickets have become common and ticket stubs have largely disappeared. People now turn to apps like Letterboxd to keep track of the movies they've watched.
“The popcorn bucket creates a physical memory of that moment,” Melnick said.
Nostalgia is what led Cypress Park food truck manager Fanor Sanchez, 32, to buy a bucket of popcorn shaped like an alien's head. A longtime fan of the “Alien” franchise, he has since purchased three more collectible vessels and has planned trips to the theaters on opening nights just to get one. I would buy more, but admits that they take up a lot of space.
“It makes me feel like a kid again,” Sanchez said. “It's like going to the store and buying a new toy that you'll end up forgetting about in a week.”
