All Aboard: SDCC Reveals the Cinema Merch for Harry Potter’s 25th-Anniversary Theatrical Run
Consider this your boarding call from Platform 9¾ — destination: your local cinema. Warner Bros. gave San Diego Comic-Con attendees a first look at the merchandise line built for Harry Potter’s 25th-anniversary theatrical run, and the star of the show is exactly what you’d hope: a Hogwarts Express popcorn bucket.
The images, shared from the convention floor by Collider’s Steve Weintraub, show a cinema merch collection that includes the big red steam engine itself, a second bucket wrapped in artwork of Hogwarts under a moonlit sky with removable crests for all four houses, plus scarves and broomsticks. And the Express earns the “steam engine” title literally — in the video it appears to puff steam from its funnel, though how it pulls that off hasn’t been explained (our guess is a small mist effect, but that’s speculation on our part). AMC has also shown off anniversary buckets of its own, and the four Hogwarts house cups are coming to AMC as well — alongside a Nimbus 2000 that may be the cleverest popcorn vessel of the bunch: the popcorn is stored in the bristles, and the midpoint of the tail bristles unscrews to reveal a hollow interior. A quick note on what’s still soft: the full lineup and pricing haven’t been announced yet, so treat the SDCC display as a first look rather than the complete set.
View the SDCC merch photos on Instagram
When the Films Hit Theaters
The merch accompanies the 25th-anniversary theatrical event: all eight Harry Potter films return to theaters worldwide from August 27 through September 3, while Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone gets a one-week run featuring 12 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage never before seen on the big screen. It’s all part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s global Back to Hogwarts celebration — which also includes HBO Max’s first-ever London fan event on September 1, though WBD is asking fans to skip King’s Cross that day.
Will you be hunting down the Hogwarts Express bucket, or is your shelf already at capacity? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to follow along for more Harry Potter news.
