Calling all pizza and movie lovers: Our day has come. The global pizza franchise Pizza Hut has created a pizza box that, yes, doubles as a movie projector. Feast your eyes on the “Blockbuster Box”:
The concept was designed by Ogilvy & Mather in Hong Kong, which is unfortunately the only place where it’s available. Quartz has reached out to Pizza Hut to ask if and when the box will come to other countries, and we’ll update this story with any response.
Simply remove the projector lens from the pizza saver (that plastic thing at the center of your pizza), punch a hole out of the box, insert the lens, and place your phone in the box.
Each box comes with its own QR code to scan, which gives you one of a variety of special movies that Pizza Hut has made for the occasion, designed to play via the projector. According to the Verge: “They’re called Slice Night (for horror fans), Anchovy Armageddon (for science-fiction), Hot & Ready (for romance), and Fully Loaded (for an action flick).”
There are a few potential obstacles. First of all, we imagine that your room would have to be quite dark, and the brightness on your phone turned all the way up, for the image quality to be halfway decent. And you’d need to finish the pizza (or at least remove all the slices from the box) before you put your phone inside. And once you do that, it’s bound to get some pizza grease on it.
This is mostly, of course, a marketing gimmick, meant to incorporate one’s smartphone into the pizza-eating experience. But it’s still a fascinating concept, and could offer children a fun way to learn about optics while devouring some pizza.
For better or worse, Pizza Hut has been at the forefront of emerging pizza technology. The restaurant recently tested a digital menu in the UK that tracks customers’ eyes to learn what they want to order. It is also developing an interactive ordering table, on which customers can assemble their own pizza. And last month, a woman she used Pizza Hut’s delivery app to signal that she was being held hostage.