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As the past three Deadpool movies can attest, Ryan Reynolds would win an Olympic gold medal in movie marketing (if it were a sport). And, one of the most hilarious ways that the Wade Wilson actor has promoted Deadpool and Wolverine is through a Wolverine popcorn bucket that mocks the viral Dune bucket from just a few months earlier. Now that the bucket has become so popular it’s even sold out online, and we’ve just learned how the whole thing started behind the scenes.
Rod Mason, who is the vice president of business development at Zinc Group, works for the company behind the specialty popcorn buckets that have been all the rage in theaters as of late. When speaking to Yahoo! about the creation of the lewd Wolverine popcorn container, Mason said this:
Somebody got ahold of [the Dune bucket] in January and all hell broke loose. When the Dune bucket came out — I don’t know Ryan Reynolds, but apparently he made a statement that he wanted to have his bucket be as viral and exciting as the Dune one … they had already purchased a Deadpool concept, but they had to scratch that and go back into production.
Per Mason, the Dune popcorn bucket was manufactured back in July 2023, just one month after the original concept for the third Deadpool bucket had been submitted. However, when people learned about the Dune container, particularly Ryan Reynolds, they completely went back to the drawing board to poke some fun at the NSFW jokes fans had been making about the Dune design.
The new Deadpool And Wolverine popcorn buckets cost $25 each, but they have become so popular among fans that they are currently sold out – but available to preorder on AMC Theatres‘ website now for $32.99 with new shipments not arriving until November. There’s also a specialty Deadpool Xbox controller with butt cheeks on the back that was just released this summer. So, it’s safe to say they’re killing the unique NSFW products.
The Dune popcorn bucket ended up being a topic of conversation that the star-studded cast virally reacted to during the sequel’s press tour, and it recently sold out immediately at San Diego Comic-Con. It also was the subject of this hilarious Saturday Night Live skit featuring Ayo Edebiri of The Bear:
While the Deadpool and Wolverine bucket was completely intended to be suggestive, the Dune bucket was… not. As Mason explained:
Part of the challenge [for the Dune bucket] was trying to figure out what’s going to be eye-catching and what people will want to take home. You have to understand that fans know what all this stuff is. They might love Oscar Isaac or whoever else is in the movie, but … they also want something that’s iconic. With Dune, the most iconic thing is the worm.
The team did think about modeling the popcorn bucket after the “pain box” from the movies, but ultimately decided that the sandworm would be the most iconic image to help market the movie. Following the success of the Dune bucket, even more 2024 movies are getting specialty popcorn containers like the new Alien: Romulus’ Xenomorph bucket.
You can watch Deadpool and Wolverine in theaters now. Meanwhile, we’ll be trying to figure out which movie will have the next viral bucket.