Cinemas celebrate return of viral 'sandworm' popcorn buckets for Dune Part 3
The Dune: Part Three marketing team has raised the stakes yet again with the new film tie-in popcorn bucket—and many claim designers knew ‘exactly what they were doing’ by releasing it.
This December, the finale in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune trilogy arrives in cinemas, with Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, and Anya Taylor-Joy all returning for the spectacle.
Dune: Part Three is set almost two decades after Paul Atreides (played by Chalamet) seized control of the Imperium; the ruthless emperor is forced to grapple with the consequences of his domination of Arrakis, the desert planet.
Odeon Cinemas Group in the UK and AMC Theatres in the United States are celebrating the sci-fi flick’s release on 18 December with themed popcorn buckets fans are clambering to get their hands on.
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“Please take my money,” one X user typed. A second reported: “The mouth tentacle tendrils things just gonna be painting butter 360 degrees all around your hand wrist and forearm every time you reach in.”
“We all thinking the same thing right,” someone else questioned, while a fourth wrote: “Which freak designed this.”
The new popcorn buckets, featuring double Shai-Hulud maw heads that customers can stick their hands into, have reinvigorated the hype that 2024’s jaw-dropping ‘sandworm’ bucket originally built.
At one point, the original buckets were listed for hundreds of pounds on eBay, and were so popular that they even appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch with Marcello Hernández, Ayo Edebiri, and Bowen Yang.
According to AMC, the Double Sandworm bucket, with two mouths side-by-side, is ‘designed to make sharing popcorn easier’.
If you don’t fancy twice the fun, then don’t worry—there are other designs too.
An alternative bucket features just one Shai-Hulud and a dinky, functional ‘thumper’ inspired by the ones used by the Fremen in the film.
If the viral popcorn holders are a little bit too freaky for you, there’s a sandworm-free cup, moulded to resemble a Spacing Guild Navigator as seen in the trailers, available to purchase.
People Magazine reported that there will also be an Atreides-Fremen cup that lights up, plus a sandworm plush toy and various keychains available at AMC.
Speaking about the mind-boggling designs, Hank Green, AMC’s senior vice president of food and beverage, said he ‘knew that Dune fans would have high expectations for what came next’ after the popcorn buckets for Part Two.
“From the moment we started planning the Dune: Part Three collectables, our goal was to exceed those fan expectations,” he shared. “The Sandworm Thumper and Double Sandworm collectables take the experience to the next level with designs straight from the movie.”
Dune: Part Three arrives in cinemas on 18 December.
Topics: TV and Film, Social Media
Ella Scott