A $136.40 party pack of popcorn, wings and Icees — delivered not from a restaurant, but from a movie theater — is Cinemark's newest bet that its concessions business can survive your couch.

The Plano, Texas-based cinema chain, which operates roughly 500 theaters, has rolled out a lineup of football gameday specials for home delivery through DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub and 7NOW, 7-Eleven's delivery arm. Delivery is currently available from 300 of its U.S. locations.

The flagship GameDay Tailgate Party Pack runs $136.40 on DoorDash in Chicago and feeds a crowd: two giant sacks of to-go popcorn, 32 boneless wings, two nachos, two boxed candies and four fountain drinks or Icees. Two smaller bundles round out the menu.

• Kickoff Combo — one popcorn, two hot dogs, two nachos, two candies, two drinks: $55.55
• WingMan Pack — a wing platter plus popcorn: $71.50

Customers can also order individual concessions — candy, drinks, popcorn — including Pack-a-Pop, a giant sealed bag built for at-home eating. Cinemark will even ship you a blanket for $22 on DoorDash.

Why is a theater chain on DoorDash?

Because the popcorn travels better than the movies do. Cinemark began adding delivery to its domestic locations in late 2023, and at the time said it was the first theater chain to partner with all three major third-party delivery platforms. Early tests, the company argued, showed customers "crave Cinemark's warm buttery popcorn, crisp cold drinks and delicious snacks from the comfort of their homes," David Haywood, Cinemark's SVP of food and beverage, said in a statement.

The economics are already showing up in the filings. Concession sales hit a record $433.3 million in the quarter ended June 30, driven by strong box office traffic. That's roughly $866,600 per theater over three months — though Cinemark hasn't disclosed how much of it comes from delivery rather than lobby counters.

Rivals are chasing the same dollar. Last month, AMC Theatres disclosed that food delivery sales from its cinemas were up nearly 50% year over year and had grown into a multimillion-dollar business, with especially strong demand for popcorn outside the theater. Regal Cinemas and the food-focused Alamo Drafthouse also deliver from select locations.

What does this change for restaurants?

One more competitor on the delivery apps — and not a small one. Restaurants already fight convenience stores and grocery chains for consumers' app-based food spending, and now cinema chains with high-margin concession menus are stacking into the same marketplaces. The platforms themselves keep growing: DoorDash revenue climbed 36% year over year last quarter, while Uber Eats rose 28%.

For operators, that means a gameday delivery order is no longer a contest among pizza chains and wings joints alone. A 32-wing bundle with two popcorn sacks and four Icees is now a direct substitute, priced at $136.40 against whatever your party platter costs.

Expect the push to widen. Cinemark has scaled from a late-2023 pilot to 300 deliverable locations, AMC says delivery is growing at nearly 50% a year, and the third-party platforms keep adding non-restaurant merchants to their marketplaces.