So, is Primetime Getting a Popcorn Bucket?

Primetime explores To Catch a Predator, the 2004 series where decoys posed as minors online to lure adult men into a televised confrontation with Chris Hansen. Directed by Lance Oppenheim in his narrative feature debut, the film is set in 2006 as Hansen and NBC chase ratings off the show’s early success.

Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers and Bokeem Woodbine round out the cast, and the film premieres at the Venice International Film Festival before its wide release.

To Catch a Predator was enormously popular and extremely controversial at its peak. In 2006, Hansen and the Murphy Police targeted Texas Assistant District Attorney Bill Conradt, who committed suicide in his home during a police raid (with the cameras rolling). This incident and the considerable controversy around Hansen and To Catch a Predator in general are focal points of the film.

With all this in mind, we have to wonder if A24 is planning to produce a limited edition popcorn bucket for Primetime. While it’s certainly not a requirement, collectable popcorn buckets have exploded in popularity in the last few years, and they’re more or less expected for any new movie. As soon as the reveal trailer goes up, collectors are already making room on their shelf for the new bucket.

It’s no secret that Hollywood has been struggling post-pandemic. While things have definitely been on the up in the last few years, audience attendance and overall profits have yet to return to pre-2020 numbers.

Collectable popcorn buckets have become an important way for theaters to both market and collect profits on new releases. Chains and production companies will collaborate to produce new designs in an attempt to catch viral attention and one-up the previous must-have bucket.

We first started tracking this trend in earnest with 2023’s Barbie. Theaters offered signature pink Corvettes as the film’s limited edition popcorn buckets, and they exploded in popularity as fans tried to secure one before they sold out. At their peak, they were reselling for nearly $200. This triggered a new wave of interest, with films like Dune: Part Two, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Wicked, and plenty more all featuring collectable popcorn buckets.

Collectable popcorn buckets are more or less an expectation for a new film, for both moviegoers and the producers footing the bill as an additional income stream that can buoy a middling release toward blockbuster profits. We would be surprised to see a film like Primetime skip out on the extra money, provided A24 and the theaters they’re partnering with can come up with a good idea.

Fans have already begun to post AI-generated mockups for a potential Primetime bucket. Most are pretty uncreative (shocker), and we’re confident A24 can do better if they put their minds to it.

We’re very, very curious to see the route A24 takes. They could play it safe and skirt any controversy by producing something boring, just a bucket with the film’s name on it or a still from the film. They could steer into the skid and produce something inflammatory and bombastic as a sort of metacommentary on a film analyzing an inherently exploitative program like To Catch a Predator.

Or they could produce something novel, desirable, and collectible, but not necessarily pegged to the film. Christopher Nolan did this recently with The Odyssey. While most moviegoers expected something obvious like a Trojan Horse replica (and theaters did sell those), the most popular popcorn buckets produced for The Odyssey were the miniature IMAX camera replicas. At their peak, these were flipping for up to $200.

What would that look like for Primetime? Honestly, we have no idea. Can you produce a tangible representation of Chris Hansen’s psyche? Or an essay on the ethics of hidden camera journalism big enough to hold a large popcorn? We’re just scalpers; it’s up to the great minds at A24, Regal, and AMC to come up with something worth reselling.

In any case, we’ll probably get an answer soon(ish). Primetime is set for release September 25 after a limited premiere at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. Limited edition popcorn buckets are usually revealed a few weeks before a film’s premiere, and they go on sale on or shortly before release day. If A24 is actually making a collectable Primetime popcorn bucket, we’ll probably get our eyes on it sometime next month.

You can sign up for email notifications for Primetime news on A24’s site. Information of popcorn buckets will likely come out here first.