Alien Romulus and Beetlejuice popcorn bucket: Meet the mystery men who make all those novelty popcorn holders.

If you spent the long weekend in a chilly theater for an Alien: Romulus matinee, there is a good chance you witnessed a few superfans munching popcorn pulled from a matte-black Xenomorph head. Most moviegoers became familiar with Zinc’s work in the run-up to the release of Dune Part Two, where the company unveiled their wonderfully weird sandworm-themed popcorn bucket. That’s why I reached out to Zinc’s vice president of business development, Rod Mason, and global creative director, Marcus Gonzalez, who are the auteurs behind the novelty popcorn bucket renaissance. Mason: When we first started working on the R2-D2 bucket, I was talking to our creative director at that time, and he was like, “What do you think?” I said, “Well, it’s going to be very expensive, but let’s throw it out there and see what people say.” The response we got was so great that we kept doing it. I did a little doodle of it and I said, “I’m thinking about this.” Wizards of the Coast ultimately said, “Well, we weren’t thinking about that, but it’s pretty cool, so let’s figure out how to make it happen.” Was it the SNL sketch about the Dune popcorn bucket that made you realize these items were having a real moment?