There’s a new Street Fighter movie on the horizon. Based on the trailers and what little advertising I’ve seen of it, it looks like it’s going to be about as good as previous attempts at adapting the long-running video game franchise into a live-action narrative. But maybe the most simultaneously impressive and depressing thing to come of it all is the popcorn bucket AMC will be releasing alongside the film.
It’s shaped like Guile’s hair.
Aerodynamic. Ergonomic. Delicious. The AMC Exclusive
for #StreetFighterMovie in theaters Oct. 16! Tickets go on sale Monday!pic.twitter.com/v7OAuwWPtA
— Street Fighter Movie (@Street_Fighter) September 17, 2026
You remember Guile. He is the unabashedly patriotic street fighter with an American flag tattoo, camouflage pants, a green tank top, and, of course, his iconic extraordinarily high flattop hairstyle that looks like a bale of hay sitting atop his head. It’s like a blonde mushroom cloud exploding from his ears.
This is the latest entry into the popcorn bucket arms race, as the designers of these things are working as hard as they can to make them as absurdly impractical as they can, to the benefit of no one other than those who have space in their home for an ironic food receptacle based on a movie that will probably be okay at best.
AMC’s New ‘Street Fighter’ Popcorn Bucket Is Completely Ridiculous (and I Want One)
Please, do not misconstrue me. I’m not trying to be a scold here. I love the Guille flattop hair popcorn bucket. I want it more, and I want it harder, than any other popcorn receptacle I’ve ever seen in my life. I forgot to mention that you can wear it on your head. I don’t mean that it doubles as a hat when you’re not using it as a popcorn bucket. I mean that it has a chin strap so you can wear it on your head while it’s filled with popcorn.
It’s unbelievably stupid, a complete waste of all of our time, and is, frankly, indicative of a joke on the brink of playing itself out, and I very much want to own it for all of those reasons.
I don’t know why. The heart wants what it wants. Whether I will act on this impulse is iffy, given how I have felt similarly about past popcorn buckets, and the lack of them in my kitchen cabinetry tells you everything you need to know about how strongly I feel about any of this.
First looks at the ‘DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE’ popcorn bucket.
— Complex Pop Culture (@ComplexPop) May 30, 2024
When Did Popcorn Buckets Get So Popular?
The Deadpool & Wolverine popcorn bucket featuring Wolverine’s gaping mouth seemed like a fun one to own. I never even tried to get it. Recently, The Odyssey had a couple of different popcorn buckets — one shaped like the Trojan horse and another shaped like the 70-millimeter IMAX cameras they used to film the movie. I very, very briefly wanted one or both of them before that desire was immediately shuffled out of my brain by whatever thought came next, probably what I wanted to have for lunch that day.
Then of course there was the famous Dune: Part Two popcorn bucket where you had to dip your hand into the frilly mouth of a sandworm that everyone on Earth immediately identified as looking very much like a male sex toy. I didn’t want it for that specific purpose, because quite frankly it looks rather unpleasant to have sex with. I wanted it for the same reason these things have become memes: the fact that in this age of digitalization where everything is intangible and major corporations have become stingier than they’ve ever been, there’s still someone out there making some dumb fun s—t you can touch, physically own, and see it as it takes up precious space in your home.
I still own all four McDonald’s Batman Forever glass mugs. I still have four McDonald’s Jurassic Park novelty cups. One of the cups I use as a pen holder at the desk I’m currently sitting at is from a 1990 Burger King tie-in with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and another is a novelty Super Sloppy Double Dare Pizza Hut cup. I am exactly the target audience for this stuff, and even I can see the Street Fighter Guile hair popcorn bucket as just a bit much.
Of course I want it, but where do we go from here? What happens when the dumb novelty becomes too dumb and too novel for its own good? These are questions I will actively ignore as I adjust the chin strap for maximum stability, then reach a foot and a half above my head to grab some popcorn out of my Guile’s hair popcorn bucket.
The post The ‘Street Fighter’ Popcorn Bucket Might Be the Dumbest One Yet. I Need It ASAP. appeared first on VICE.
