When I was in college, I worked the summer box office at movie theaters in Atlanta. That was my side hustle — a few bucks to keep me stocked in textbooks, tacos and terrible University of Michigan t-shirts.

Back then, my job included more than tearing tickets and trying to look authoritative in a polyester vest. I also worked concessions, scooping endless buckets of popcorn and drenching them in a golden sludge we were legally forbidden to call “butter.” We called it “butter flavoring,” which felt like the sincerest kind of Hollywood honesty.

In those days, popcorn came in two forms: small or large. Maybe there was a medium, but it was just large with a guiltier conscience.

There were no Darth Vader heads, no Iron Man helmets, no $40 novelty containers shaped like F1 racing helmets. You wanted a refill? You came back with your oily bucket, we obliged, and you went back to watch Bruce Willis save yet another building.

Now, though, movie theaters have decided the kernel itself isn’t expensive enough. We need spectacle. We need the popcorn bucket to double as cosplay.

Enter the helmet buckets. You’ve probably seen them online — part snack vessel, part Comic-Con badge of honor. You can get a Star Wars Clone Trooper helmet, a Deadpool head, or even a Spider-Man mask, each designed to be the ultimate collector’s item (or, more likely, an eventual closet ornament you step over once a year).

The wildest part? These helmets don’t actually hold that much popcorn. One recent Marvel helmet holds about the same as a regular medium bucket — which means they’ve found a way to charge you large prices for medium popcorn, plus the privilege of wearing it on your head and posting it to Instagram.

It’s all part of the modern theater hustle. You come for the movie, but they make their real money in concessions. In my Ann Arbor days, we joked that the actual ticket price just covered the air conditioning. The real star was the popcorn: 15 cents worth of kernels transformed into a $9 edible sculpture.

Now, we’ve graduated to $30 helmets that promise a few extra kernels and a dash of faux-nerd prestige.

Still, I get it. People want to feel part of the show. They want to leave with more than a crumpled ticket stub and a stomach ache.

And, in a way, I admire the creativity — or at least the audacity — of a business that can convince us to pay extra for the same snack we’ve been guzzling since the days of silent films.

So, if you see me in line one day with an Iron Man helmet full of popcorn, don’t judge me too harshly. Just know that somewhere deep inside, I’m still that college kid behind the glass, ladling out butter flavoring and trying not to laugh at the markups.

After all, that’s show business.