Nosferatu’s Popcorn Coffin Is a Deadly Entry in 2024’s Bucket Arms Race

This Christmas, all the cool kids are going to suck. Suck blood, that is, when they go to see easily the darkest wide release this holiday season, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu. It stars Bill Skarsgård as the evil Count Orlok, an immortal vampire whose control over a young couple (Nicholas Hoult and Lily-Rose Depp) throws a whole town into chaos.

Local theaters might be chaos too thanks to a promotional tie-in to the film. Focus Features has revealed it’s teaming with select theaters (it’s unclear which, specifically, so check your local one) to release a special popcorn bucket for the film. It’s of Count Orlok’s coffin. You see a glimpse above, see a little video here, and here’s a better image.

Though themed popcorn bucks have long been a thing, the trend saw a huge surge in 2024 with the release of the sexually charged bucket for Dune: Part Two. That shined a new spotlight on subsequent buckets from films such as Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, and gave Marvel an excuse to make its own sexually suggestive bucket for Deadpool and Wolverine. The buckets have continued since, most recently with one for Gladiator II that uses augmented reality.

This Nosferatu bucket is where it’s at though. A prop from the movie, translated to a popcorn receptacle with a shape that can actually hold popcorn. We’re all about it. Plus, with tickets now on sale for the holiday thriller, Focus is having some extra fun too. For example, sold-out seats on Fandango show up as coffins for the film. How macabre is that?

The reserved seats for ‘NOSFERATU’ on Fandango are coffins.

In theaters Christmas Day. pic.twitter.com/RCQL8bvcnT

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) November 25, 2024

We’ll have more from Nosferatu in the coming weeks. For now, where does this rank among 2024 popcorn buckets for you? Let us know below. Co-starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and Willem Dafoe, Nosferatu opens on Christmas Day.

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