Why a Popcorn Bucket Can Cost $80

Our story starts with a jumbo tub of movie theater popcorn. At the movies, we mostly eat butterfly popcorn. Different from microwavable Orville Redenbacher or Pop Secret, butterfly popcorn pops bigger. As a fluffier popcorn, it occupies more space in those huge tubs.

But sometimes we don’t want a huge tub.

Collectible Popcorn Buckets

Instead, we could prefer The Odyssey’s $70 22-inch Trojan horse. Collectors don’t seem to care that its belly holds 50 ounces–120 ounces less than the large bucket. The horse and a replica of the IMAX camera are this summer’s hottest buckets. First they had an initial 2,500-bucket run and then a second one that immediately sold out. So far, they believe they’ve sold 30,000 units:

Making the popcorn bucket can take 4 to 12 months from design to production. Predictably, bucket designers get a “sneak peek” at the movie so they have a feel for what might sell:

The Devil Wears Prada 2 bucket was a red handbag:

Our Bottom Line: At the Margin

Movie Theater Revenue

Economists like to say that we make our decisions at the margin. With margin referring to that imaginary line between what we do and what we could do, it refers to the next extra good or service we contemplate. A margin of victory is the extra points beyond an opponent’s score. Similarly, the marginal worker is the next extra person who was hired.

The allure of the buckets surprised movie theater management. At first doubtful, now seeing them generate more than $100 million annually, the buckets became a beloved revenue booster. At Cinemark’s margin, bucket sales elevated merchandise revenue by 40 percent from 2024 to 2025.

Taking us to profit margins, collectible buckets balloon extra revenue. While the movie theater gets most of its revenue from ticket and food sales, tickets are less attractive because somewhere between 60% and 70% (and sometimes more for a huge hit) of the ticket revenue goes to the movie distributor. By contrast, theater owners retain all revenue from a collectible bucket sale.

Preserving a happy memory and expanding a profit margin, the reputedly irresistible Odyssey’s collectible buckets reminded me of why the warrior Ulysses insisted that his crew tie him to the mast. Only then could he resist the Sirens’ song and continue his journey home:

My sources and more: Thanks to the  NY Times for alerting me to collectible popcorn buckets. From there, we learned more about the buckets here and here. But also, we researched movie theater revenue and growing popcorn.

Please note that several of today’s sentences were in a previous econlife post, and our featured image is from boxofficepro.com.