NEW YORK, NY.- When I first encountered an image of the popcorn bucket that AMC Theaters is selling to promote Denis Villeneuves Dune: Part Two, I stared at it for a beat trying to process what I was looking at. The item is supposed to represent a giant sandworm, the beasts that slither under the desert planet Arrakis. On top of the normal container sits a lid that depicts the cylindrical body of the creature emerging from the ground. The opening where you are ostensibly supposed to reach in to snatch some kernels is fashioned like the worms maw with its many tendril-like teeth, here rendered in plastic. The bucket is intricately designed, but appears, well, especially anatomical to put it politely and somewhat difficult to use to actually get treats into your mouth.
The Dune popcorn bucket has become a genuine mini-phenomenon. The films cast and crew have been asked to comment on it, and Villeneuve even told The New York Times, charmingly, When I saw it, I went, Hoooooly smokes. There was a Saturday Night Live sketch that rhymed bucket with a phrase that is unprintable here. Yet, the more I followed talk of the bucket, the more I wanted to possess it. (And no, not for the reasons youre thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter, please.) As a fan of movies and their ephemera, I began to feel as if I needed to have this piece of hilariously suggestive memorabilia in my home.
The bucket, both in its sheer strangeness and in the way it has become a cultural moment, reminded me of an earlier era of collectibles of tie-ins like those McDonalds Batman Forever mugs with badly drawn versions of Jim Carreys Riddler that seemed to be a mainstay in 1990s cupboards. But it also is reminiscent of the too-weird-to-be-true marketing misadventures of yore, things that are so unintentionally off-putting that they are also sort of amazing. See the Jar Jar Binks lollipop in which the Gungan aliens mouth opens to reveal a candy tongue that you are supposed to suck. Ew, to say the least.
Theres even a history of this with Dune itself. When David Lynchs 1984 version of the Frank Herbert epic was released, you could buy a sandworm action figure that, once again, looked unnervingly phallic. (Theres one on eBay if youre willing to shell out.)
Not all of my nostalgia is for the unsavory. The recent frenzy reminded me of the things I used to covet when I was a wee fan starting to fixate on film. My main obsession was Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings trilogy, so when Burger King released a line of light-up goblets with the visages of characters like Aragorn and Arwen etched on their sides, I knew I needed them. (I had other LOTR-themed glassware as well, including mugs that revealed the inscription on the Ring of Power when you filled them with hot liquid. Pretty sure those are still in my parents house.)
Thinking about the potential legacy of the Dune popcorn bucket, I called my friend Griffin Newman, an actor and merchandise obsessive. On his movie podcast Blank Check With Griffin & David, he regularly goes on tangents about miscellanea such as the Austin Powers Collectible Card Game (featuring cards like Mini Me in Quasi Futuristic Clothes). He described the Dune bucket as ingenious because it incentivizes people to go to theaters. There is the sort of magic alchemy of when you have something where everyones perversely fascinated by it, he added.
The Dune bucket follows a series of containers that AMC has released for other blockbusters, among them ones in the shape of the masked heads of Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and burn books for the new Mean Girls. In December I picked up one pegged to Top Gun: Maverick, made to look like the outside of a flight craft, that my local multiplex was giving away. It was a little less elaborate, but I liked the movie and thought, Why not? Perhaps the most desirable one was the Barbie Corvette. It doesnt do a great job of holding popcorn, which spills out the sides, but it does uncannily resemble a sleek Barbie car.
The buckets arent the only merch circulating these days. Theres an elite side to this, too, thanks to the likes of the distributor A24, which sells $36 hot dog finger gloves in homage to the best picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once and a $400 designer necklace tied to Sofia Coppolas Priscilla. But A24 also at least has an appreciation for the chintzy: Its publishing arm has put out the book For Promotional Use Only, a catalog of swag and merch from 1975 to 2005 that features wonderful treasures like a flashlight from Roland Emmerichs Godzilla (1998) with the illumination coming from Godzillas mouth. (It also apparently roared.)
Its easy to be cynical about all of this. After all, the Dune popcorn buckets are just a way to upsell you on already expensive snacks, and its likely that most of the bulky vessels will eventually end up in landfills when buyers decide they dont really need a Shai-Hulud depiction that raises eyebrows. But some fans will invariably hold onto these wonderfully bizarre totems of their affection for a genuinely unique cinematic experience. Even Villeneuve acknowledged that the bucket brought a lot of laughter and joy. Twenty years from now, when someone says, Remember those awkward Dune popcorn buckets? we movie freaks will reply, Yes, we sure do!
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.