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Imagine you’ve just left the cinema. The film was good, but, even more importantly, you managed to get your hands on a precious, limited-edition piece of merchandise! You’re one of the lucky ones: hunting for the latest cinema merchandise has become one of film fanatics’ favourite pastimes in 2024!
Film production companies, major distribution chains and even small, indie cinemas have once again turned to movie merchandise to publicise the latest must-see films, and it seems their creativity knows no bounds.
If you’ve been to the cinema in recent years, you may have encountered popcorn buckets in the shape of superheroes; beautiful, limited-edition tickets; posters large and small; stickers and much more besides. From Dune 2 to Despicable Me 4 and from Star Wars to Tarantino, not to mention Barbie, in this article we’ll explore the collector’s items that are now taking over cinemas.
The popcorn bucket wars: new merchandise marking film releases
Novelty film-themed popcorn buckets started out as an American craze, but they have now become wildly popular in Europe too. In 2024, the trend has grown exponentially: indeed, an all-out merchandising war appears to have broken out, with some truly bizarre designs emerging!
One of the most iconic and highly sought-after of these is undoubtedly the Dune 2 popcorn bucket, although fishing popcorn out of a rather intimidating and inconvenient plastic prosthesis depicting the mouth of a sandworm, the fearsome underground creature found on the planet Arrakis, is perhaps not to everyone’s taste.
Luckily for its creators, however, this bizarre piece of merchandise was a boon for the film’s marketing, going viral on social media and becoming a cult collector’s item offline in the space of just a few days. It is now so difficult to come by, it sells for hundreds of dollars online.
Collectors are also paying astronomical prices for a popcorn bucket designed for Deadpool & Wolverine, the third chapter in the saga of the irreverent superhero Deadpool. His merchandise is just as unconventional as he is: one of the popcorn buckets, described by the creators as “designed by Deadpool”, depicts Wolverine with his mouth wide open in a decidedly uncomfortable position for the Marvel anti-hero’s unlucky companion.
The 2024 popcorn bucket war has spread to many other films too. These include Inside Out 2 (somewhat ironically, you get to eat your snack direct from Anger’s not-too-happy face), Despicable Me 4 (there’s a minion involved, of course), the ultra-convenient One Piece bucket, the ghost trap-shaped bucket designed for Ghostbusters – Frozen Empire, and many more besides.
This marks a turning point from a marketing perspective: it seems that once again, people want something physical and tangible to associate with the visual experience of going to the cinema. After years of bombardment with digital products, the public has decided that it also wants something to take home from the experience: an object they can grow fond of.
Who, for example, would not want to come out of the cinema with one of these brilliant drinks containers in the shape of Deadpool and Wolverine?
Printed movie merchandise, from Star Wars to Quentin Tarantino
But the return of cinema merch goes far beyond popcorn buckets. Buying or pre-ordering cinema tickets often now gives film lovers access to limited-edition printed objects like posters or special versions of the tickets themselves.
This was true of the release of The Marvels in 2023, which in certain cinemas was accompanied by collectible, finely crafted tickets and button-shaped badges. In some cinemas, people who bought a ticket for the first day of screenings of Barbie – the cult 2023 film dedicated to Mattel’s famous doll – received a special ticket featuring one of the movie’s characters. According to recent research, the merchandise created for Barbie’s release topped the charts for audience popularity in 2023.
When it comes to variety, however, Star Wars is not to be outdone. The releases of the most recent episodes in the saga came with printed merchandise of all types, including shiny tickets, t-shirts and posters.
And talking of limited-edition posters, we have to mention the fantastic poster promoted in many European cinemas to coincide with the 2019 release of Quentin Tarantino’s most recent film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The poster, now a collector’s item, features all of the American director’s most famous scenes in one fantasy building. Do you recognise them all?
Stickers, comfy fleece blankets, giant cardboard cutouts and t-shirts!
But cinema merchandise comes in a vast array of different forms.
Another hot product at the moment is stickers. The film distributor Paramount, for example, designed some cute stickers to hand out in selected cinemas to mark the release of IF, perfect for sticking to the back of your laptop, water bottle or diary.
Then there are various “extra-large” objects – still rather unusual this side of the Atlantic – like the fleece blanket for sleepy or chilly viewers sold in some American cinemas for the release of Garfield The Movie, or the life-size cardboard cutouts of characters from Star Wars (for the 25th anniversary of The Phantom Menace), The Lord of the Rings and Inside Out 2, on sale at the US-based AMC Theatres, the largest cinema chain in the world.
Meanwhile, a few years ago, for the release of Bad Boys 3 – the second sequel to the iconic film starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as unconventional policemen in Miami – the producers focused entirely on fabrics and clothing, devising a range of themed t-shirts, sweatshirts and baseball caps!
What do you think the next weapons unleashed by cinemas and film production companies in the merchandise war will be? Have you snaffled a piece of merch that you are particularly fond of? Or are you still on the lookout for the ultimate collector’s item?