Movie marketing is a tricky thing, as studios sometimes go to strange lengths to get the public excited for upcoming movies… going viral in the process. Case in point: Dune 2‘s popcorn buckets, which many thought looked like a sex toy. They were memed so much that they got their own digital short on SNL, and Kevin Feige promised Deadpool 3‘s bucket will be purposefully lewd. And now Dune director Denis Villeneuve has responded to Deadpool‘s wild popcorn buckets, being quoted saying “they are tremendously jealous”. Let’s break it all down.
What we know about Deadpool & Wolverine is limited, but the marketing campaign has been full of hilarious details. Deadpool 3‘s bucket purposefully looks like a sex toy, with fans shoving their hands in Wolverine’s mouth to get each hand full of popcorn. Villeneuve spoke to ETalk, where he joked about the upcoming Marvel movie competing with his sci-fi series. In his words:
Now that’s some fun, old-fashioned smack talk. While Dune and Deadpool aren’t actually competing at the box office, that hasn’t stopped the two movies from being compared to each other in relation to their popcorn bucket. And both are twisted for different reasons.
While the Dune franchise (which is streaming with a Max subscription) is super serious, the Deadpool movies are decidedly lighter. The first two movies had non-stop jokes, often breaking the wall and poking fun at the superhero genre in the process. And that’s exactly why Ryan Reynolds‘ franchise had to poke fun at the Dune popcorn bucket that went so viral.
While fans are wondering if/when Dune Messiah will be officially green lit, all eyes are on what’s coming when Deadpool & Wolverine finally arrives in theaters in July. Fans are eager to see Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds’ faux feud play out on the big screen, and the Deadpool 3 trailers have definitely teased how electric their chemistry will be in the blockbuster. And it seems like just about anything could happen throughout the movie’s mysterious runtime.
Much of the chatter surrounding the threequel is debate about who might end up appearing as part of Deadpool & Wolverine‘s cast list. Fans have been tossing around a number of rumored names, many of whom come from Fox’s X-Men franchise. Some of these names include Halle Berry‘s Storm, Patrick Stewart‘s Professor X, Famke Janssen‘s Jean Grey, and Jennifer Garner‘s Elektra. There was also chatter about Taylor Swfit’s possible role as either Dazzler or Lady Deadpool.
All will be revealed when Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters on July 26th. For now, check the 2025 movie release dates.