How US$50 popcorn buckets have become the newest collecting craze
From Mario to Marvel characters, themed popcorn buckets are tapping into millennial nostalgia and helping boost cinema profits
Standing in her kitchen, Nicole Fontanez let out a gasp as she cut open a cardboard box, revealing a plastic figure of Yoshi, Mario’s dinosaur-like friend from the popular Nintendo games. The bulky toy was holding a hollow, polka-dotted egg.
Fontanez, 31, and her husband, Brian Fontanez, 36, were filming their reactions as they unveiled the newest addition to their novelty popcorn bucket collection for their YouTube channel, “Our Guilty Collections”, where they chat about films and memorabilia.
“It almost looks like a toy, like something you’d get [at a] Toys ‘R’ Us,” she says in the video.
“This is definitely a display piece,” her husband adds. “There’s no popcorn going into the egg.”
At a time when cinemas are struggling to sell tickets, US exhibitors are betting on increasingly elaborate popcorn buckets like the US$50 Yoshi container to capitalise on millennial nostalgia, drum up excitement for films and ultimately increase profits.