A truckload of popcorn, 350 bathtubs of soda – how to supersize a trip to the cinema!
I’m not ashamed to admit it: I like my movies BIG. Give me giant spaceships, exploding planets, superheroes punching holes in reality and enough surround sound to rearrange my internal organs. Add 3D glasses and I’m happy.
So, after heading to the cinema to see The Oldest Person in the World – Sam Green’s new documentary about the ever-changing holders of one of Guinness World Records’ most fascinating titles – I started wondering: what would movie night look like if GWR was running the cinema?
Well, it would be big. Ridiculously, unreasonably big. And that’s just how I like my cinema: supersized!
Step one: choose a cinema with serious scale
Start by finding the perfect seat. When Kinepolis Ciudad de la Imagen opened in Madrid, Spain, in 1998, it packed in 9,200 seats across 25 screens, making it the largest cinema complex. That’s like the population of a small football stadium, so plenty of choice.
But I’m not actually too bothered about having thousands of seats. I only need one, preferably somewhere in the middle, and without Sultan Kösen, the world’s tallest man, sitting directly in front of me. (Sorry, Sultan, you can sit next to me!)
What I do want is a gigantic screen.
Meet Screenzilla
The IMAX screen at Traumpalast Leonberg in Germany, measures a monstrous 38.8 m (127 ft) wide and 21 m (68 ft) high, giving it an area of 814.8 m² (8,770 sq ft).
This is wider than a Boeing 737 airliner, making it the world’s largest permanent movie screen. Indeed, it must be like watching a movie in a rather plush aircraft hanger!
It was officially measured using laser sensors positioned every 40 cm (15.7 in) in a 3D grid. When your cinema screen is this huge, a tape measure from the kitchen drawer won’t cut it.
Now bring me ALL the popcorn
A giant screen demands giant snacks, like the largest popcorn container commercially available. Created for Marvel Studios, Golden Link and Ping Solutions in Los Angeles in July 2025, it holds 9 litres (2.37 US gallons) and features Galactus – Marvel’s famously planet-hungry supervillain.
Appropriate, because you’ll need the appetite of a planet-eater to finish it.
Still hungry? Then wheel in the largest container of popcorn ever. It was unveiled by the Cineplexx chain outside Avenue Mall in Osijek, Croatia, in 2011, and was so big that it took 1 hour 57 minutes to fill. Why? Because this monster box of corn had an internal volume of 52.59 m³ (1,857 cubic ft). That’s 52,590 litres of popcorn – enough to fill most of a standard 40-ft shipping container.
The wurst is yet to come
Popcorn alone is not dinner, so next I’m ordering some protein in the shape of the largest hot dog commercially available.
Created by Gorilla Tango Novelty Meats in Chicago, USA, the Big Hot Dog weighs 3.18 kg (7 lb), measures 40.64 cm (16 in) long and 10.16 cm (4 in) thick, and was originally listed at $40.
This dumpy dog can provide around 40 regular-sized servings so is quite the mouthful. Inventor Dan Abbate admitted he had eaten an entire one – just not in one sitting. It took him a few weeks.
Pick ’n’ mix – bring your bank card
No cinema trip is complete without sweets, although this particular bag may require a small loan.
The most expensive pick ’n’ mix sold for £14,500 ($23,653) at a charity auction in 2009. It weighed just 800 g (1 lb 12 oz) and contained familiar favourites including fizzy cola bottles, pineapple cubes, white mice and jelly worms.
Why the ridiculous price? It was the final bag of pick ’n’ mix sold by the now-defunct Woolworths chain in the UK. That works out at more than £18 per gram ($683 per ounce) so there’s no way I’m sharing these with Sultan.
Credit: Nikolay/Adobe Stock
And if I ever get the feeling that a regular bag of pick ‘n’ mix just doesn’t provide enough variety, I needn’t worry. Also on offer at the GWR cinemaplex is the cornucopia of candies sourced from Tom’s Confectionery Warehouse in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. As counted by GWR in 2024, their prodigious range of pick ‘n’ mix boasts no fewer than 946 different varieties of sweets and chocolates – the world’s latest display of candy varieties!
And something small to drink…
After all that salt and sugar, I’m going to need a drink.
Luckily, Rhodes 101 Convenience Stores in Missouri, USA, created the largest cup of soft drink in 2017: a staggering 17,908.6 litres (4,731 US gallons) of lemonade.
The giant cup stood 4.19 m (13 ft 9 in) tall and took almost three hours to fill. That’s roughly 358 bathfuls, if you reckon on 50 litres (13.2 US gallons) per tub. If only we had a record for the longest straw…
Roll the film
So there we have it: thousands of seats, a jumbo-sized screen, a vat of popcorn, an actual dog-sized hot dog, an extortionately expensive bag of sweets and enough fizzy pop to drown a hippo.
And the movie?
After all that supersizing, I’d still choose The Oldest Person in the World – a thoughtful, funny and moving documentary filmed over a decade. And, of course, featuring me as a talking head! Because the best cinema experiences aren’t really about having the biggest screen or the most popcorn.
Although, obviously, 52,590 litres of popcorn does help.
Want to discover more entertainment related world records? Click here!