By skyforbes It was 2013 and my friend and I were waiting for the midnight release of Man of Steel. We got in line 8 hours early and chatted and hung out until they opened the flood gates to the theatres.
For those that don't know or may have forgotten, when you went to a midnight release you almost never reserved seats, it was almost always first come first serve, so standing in line early could help guarantee a better seat.
Once 11pmish rolled around they would let those waiting enter any theatre of their choosing (they usually would say theatres 1-6 are all up for grabs) and you would go in, place a jacket on your chair and go get snacks or do whatever you gotta do to kill roughly 40 mins – 1hr before the actually previews start rolling.
Well my friend and I got our snacks, got our ideal seats (direct middle) and had 40 minutes of time to chat and kill before the film started (pre everyone being in smart phones). Well something strange and magical happened in the next 40 minutes that I will never forget.
Someone brought a superman beach ball to the theatre and people started hitting it around like you would at a sporting event. But that's not even close to what made this moment special.
After about 5ish minutes of people having fun and hitting the ball around there was this little kid (my guess under 10 years old) who was with their parents who really really wanted to hit the ball and his parents were cheering "Johnny! Johnny!" So people started hitting the ball towards the little kid, and anytime he hit the ball some people near him would cheer or excitedly keep yelling Johnny.
About 20 minutes of this has passed and I kid you not the ENTIRE theatre is now chanting "JOHNNY! JOHNNY!" Now whenever the little kid hit the ball the whole crowd would flip out as if the game winning shot was just made at a world series sports game. This continued until the previews began and people were so excited because of this random interaction that they probably did not realize how meh the movie was lmao.
Something about this simple moment was so beautiful and unforgettable that I tell this story whenever I get the opportunity.
What about you? Did something magical happen in a theatre that would have never happened if you watched the movie at home?