Way back on February 11, Ryan Reynolds joked on X (formerly Twitter) that the Deadpool 3 popcorn bucket was going to be one for the ages. “Wait till you see the Deadpool popcorn bucket,” he said, clearly referencing the furor at the time over the Dune Part 2 sandworm popcorn bucket. And given recent comments by Marvel’s Kevin Feige and director Shawn Levy, I’m more convinced than ever: the Deadpool & Wolverine popcorn bucket is going to be Deadpool’s butt.
In case you’re not familiar with everyone online losing their minds over the Dune Part 2 AMC theaters bucket, the top was the bristly mouth of a sandworm from the movie. Somehow, you were supposed to reach inside and get your popcorn out. But — and excuse any crudeness here — the worm’s mouth already looks like an anus. Making it into a greasy popcorn bucket only exacerbated the idea that this was a hole ready to be… Well, you know.
When Reynolds got into the action above announcing his intention to tie Deadpool & Wolverine into the whole popcorn bucket fiasco, my first thought was “he’s going to make it Deadpool’s butt.” Yes, Reynolds — and the Deadpool — movies can be clever. But more often they’re purposefully crude and basic. If the sandworm bucket looks kind of like a butt? Well, why not have Deadpool’s actual butt as the thing you need to pull popcorn out of in the theater. There are other body part options of course. However, they’re either too extreme and not appropriate for a movie theater… Or too off the joke Reynolds and co. will clearly be going for. In my mind, at least, the butts have it.
Then came Disney’s presentation at CinemaCon this past week in Las Vegas. Kevin Feige onstage noted that, according to io9’s Germain Lussier, “there will be a Deadpool 3 popcorn bucket. And that while some are unintentionally gross, this one will be intentionally gross.”
Later, Levy backed up this assessment to Collider. He added, “The popcorn bucket, I’m going to say nothing except that that might be one of the greatest strokes of genius that Ryan Reynolds has had on this movie, and you’ll just have to wait and see.”
While Feige’s statements back up (no pun intended) the “Deadpool’s butt popcorn bucket” theory, Levy confuses things a bit. Because if this is just a Deadpool butt, is that one of the greatest strokes of genius Ryan Reynolds has had? I guess it could be something with the zombie Deadpool head rumored to be in the movie, or something specific from the film we don’t know about yet. But until that time, I’m sticking to the butt. Not literally, though.
