Netflix Won the Streaming Wars, and Now It’s Entered the Popcorn Wars

If Adam Aron seems perturbed this weekend, it’s not about the box office (or even his company’s meme stock) this time.

On Thursday, Netflix took a page out of AMC’s playbook and launched its own popcorn line: Netflix Now Popping. The streamer has teamed up with Popcorn Indiana for its new ready-to-eat (no microwaving) products, now available nationwide at Walmart stores. Guess where AMC’s popcorn has been sold exclusively for more than a year? Right. Walmart is the biggest retailer in the country, and its shelves (especially the end caps, where AMC’s Perfectly Popcorn launched) are precious real estate. Aron must be losing his mind.

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AMC Theatres’ branded popcorn comes in both ready-to-eat and un-popped form. Its flavors are Classic Butter, Extra Butter, and low-sodium option Lightly Salted. Netflix’s popcorn features flavors like Cult Classic Cheddar Kettle Corn and Swoonworthy Cinnamon Kettle Corn. We’re not exactly swooning over either of those names; AMC gets a win there for simplicity.

“This new line of Netflix popcorn promises a snack experience tailored to every viewer’s taste,” Netflix said in its announcement. Netflix has 270 million subscribers and two flavors, so that math may be off a hair.

AMC’s ready-to-eat popcorn, which first launched in Walmarts in March 2023, sells for $3.98 per 4.2-ounce bag. Netflix’s is the same price but for an 8-ounce bag. You can get a six-pack of AMC’s microwaveable popcorn for a dollar more. And as Aron likes to rant about on earnings calls (and likely elsewhere), his Extra Butter pack comes with “six packets of additional buttery topping that eaters at home can use to slather all over their popcorn.”

Aron is being uncharacteristically quiet these days. He has not tweeted for four days. When reached, an AMC Entertainment spokesperson declined to comment on the Netflix news.

AMC’s branded popcorn is also now available in microwave form on Amazon and at Publix; its ready-to-eat bags are also sold at Kroger.

Popcorn is serious business at AMCs, and AMCs could seriously use the business. (As could Cinemark, and any other movie theater these days.) Save the recent successes of “Inside Out 2” and “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the 2024 box office has been a rough ride this side of “Dune: Part Two.” Though the new Pixar movie and Will Smith’s post-slap comeback film have brought renewed optimism for the theatrical industry, 2024’s box-office revenue is still down 24 percent from 2023’s. And 2023’s was already well below the peak years of 2018 and 2019.

AMC is the largest theater chain in the U.S. Netflix is the biggest rival to movie theaters.

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