PARIS, Nov 2 — Popcorn is getting truffled, supersized sodas replaced with flutes of champagne and bags of M&M’s swapped for fairytale macarons in a trend that’s elevating the cinema-going experience into a gourmet treat.

Following the lead of New York and London, the menu at filmmaker Luc Besson’s newly opened multiplex cinema outside Paris includes munchies like caviar, smoked salmon, glasses of bubbly, and macarons by one of the country’s top pastry chefs, Pierre Hermé.

The EuropaCorp cinema, which opened this month, is the latest theatre around Paris to give new meaning to the term dinner and a movie, placing renewed importance on film food.

Cinema social club Le Popcorn Project, which shows films at Le Club de L’Etoile near the Champs-Elysées, has tapped the city’s burgeoning food truck scene to cater its monthly screenings and offer gourmet sandwiches, dim sum, savoury tarts, quiches and pies.

Indie movie theatres and boutiques in New York and London have likewise been offering more sophisticated versions of cheese sauce-soaked nachos and popcorn for gourmand cinephiles.

Over at Edible Cinema in London, food is synchronised with the movie to add another dimension to the movie-watching experience. For instance, during a scene in “Pan’s Labyrinth” where characters run through a pine forest, patrons munch on pine-smoked popcorn to evoke the sensation of the trees and the sound of the needle-laden forest floor.

When Marilyn Monroe’s character in “Some Like it Hot,” covers Junior with “alcohol-soaked kisses," movie watchers bite into lightly powdered, rose-tinted Turkish delight with a champagne-flavoured liquid centre. Popping candy also emulates the sensation of bubbles.

And at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn, chefs create film and food pairings that involve tucking into meals like crispy pork belly, blood orange gastrique, and a ‘Bucket of Blood’ cocktail during a screening of the horror flick “Carrie.”

Meanwhile, serious film buffs with deep pockets may want to consider taking up luxury website VeryFirstTo.com’s offer to shuttle guests to 20 of the most iconic film locations around the world. The 10-country itinerary includes sites like Katz’s deli from “When Harry Met Sally,” the Trevi Fountain in Rome from “La Dolce Vita,” and Petra, Jordan from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” yours for £198,000 (RM1 million). — AFP/Relaxnews