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Saturday Night Live Makes it Weird With That Wild, Viral Dune 2 Popcorn Bucket

Who knew that sci-fi sandworms could make Ayo Edebiri their Valentine?

By Benjamin Bullard

The film Dune: Part Two might be hitting theaters next month as a relatively tame PG-13 movie, but that hasn’t stopped it from getting a bucketload of pre-release viral buzz that’s veered hilariously over the line into NSFW territory.

RELATED: Watch Ayo Edebiri's Emotional SNL Monologue and Hilarious Sketches

After social media started popping off last week over images of the movie’s collectible popcorn container — a gnarly-looking, toothy souvenir that pays tribute to the massive sci-fi sandworms that inhabit Dune’s fictional desert planet of Arrakis — well, the wickedly warped minds at Saturday Night Live acted fast to catch comedic lightning in a bottle… or, in this case, in a suspiciously suggestive popcorn bucket.

Watch SNL's Dune Popcorn Bucket Sketch Featuring Ayo Edebiri & Marcello Hernández

Marcello Hernández stars in the clip as an innocent but hormonally-hyper teen, eager to take advantage of a high schooler’s home-alone moment so he can finally have some quality one-on-one time with the lusty object of his ample attraction. But nope, it’s not another living, breathing high schooler who’s caught our hero’s erotic eye… it’s the seductively sexy shape of that Dune: Part Two snack swag!

The popcorn-bucket sensation has clearly swept everyone’s libido into its dangerous-looking maw, because it’s not just Hernández who falls hard for the sandworm allure in the sketch. Kenan Thompson gets one of the segment’s biggest laughs as a frazzled dad who’s taken aback that his daughter (played by guest host Ayo Edebiri) doesn’t want to misbehave the old-fashioned way (i.e., by getting her groove on with, y’know, someone else). “Wait, what?!” is all he can stammer as Edebiri confesses her true sand-swept love: “Dad, I’m sorry, I don’t like boys — I like that Dune popcorn bucket, bucket, bucket!”

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Hey, it’s not the sandworms’ fault that their perfectly round gaping mouths — at least in movie-munching form — just so happen to conjure such naughty associations in some fans’ sin-sprinkled minds.

Catch the Dune Popcorn Bucket sketch online at NBC (and also streaming here on Peacock) as part of this week’s latest Saturday Night Live, hosted by Edebiri with an amped-up performance from musical guest Jennifer Lopez.