Inception Screening Shut Down -- with Christopher Nolan in Attendance
If you're Christopher Nolan and your film Inception is about to gross a $21 million Friday, wouldn't you want to sneak into a theater to check out audience reaction? Unfortunately for Nolan, he chose the wrong screening last night.
According to one of our spies, the big show at Los Angeles's Arclight Cinemas was shut down at the 100-minute mark after the air conditioning malfunctioned, turning the theater into a sweltering hotbox:
Arclight Cinerama Dome. 8:15 show. At about 10 o'clock, the light suddenly went on and the projection cut out. After 5 more minutes of heckling, a lamentable usher came out and announced that due to air conditioning failure, they are stopping the movie. Which was odd, because it was warm inside, but nothing that would warrant pulling the plug on an sold-out show on opening night.
Bedlam ensued. Folks were dumping their soda on the floor. In the lobby, they were handing out free Arclight passes to furious attendees.
Spotted outside the theater were Chris Nolan and Dileep Rao looking really concerned about the whole situation. Both were working their phones furiously (while signing a few autographs) and appeared to head back towards the theater as we headed out to find another screen to watch the rest of the film.
Attendees had the option of watching the film again from the beginning in another screening room -- a mighty thing to ask of moviegoers who'd made it 100 minutes into a 148-minute film. Still, what seemed like a bad dream to them must have been even worse for Nolan himself. (Though maybe there's an upside, and the braintrust behind the Arclight -- supposedly LA's premiere movie multiplex -- will finally upgrade its A/C units and its circa-1996 website while they're at it).
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Could be that the A/C failure was in the projection booth, not the theater. Projectors create enormous amounts of heat, and without proper A/C in the booth, they're risking equipment failure or even fires.
This would NEVER have happened if it were showing Salt.
AFTER LEO, NOLAN AND WARNERS PRESS RELEASE ON HOW MOIVIE AUDIENCES AREN'T SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THE FILM?? BOYCOTT THIS MOVIE REGARDLESS!!! ARE WE REAL TIRED OF LEO PRENTENDING HES SOME ECO GENIUS???? OH PLEASE, GORE WAS WORTH 1 MILLION, TILL HE USED FAKE WARMING, LIKE LEO TO MAKE MONEY!!!V AND GET PRESS!!! NOW GORES CAP AND TRADE ON FAKE SCIENCE WILL BILK AMEREICANS FOR LIFE, ON FAKED SCIENCE!!!! GORE NET WORTH NOW??? 97 TRILLION!!! SO LEO, JUST GET LOST!!!!! YOU FRAUD. SICK OF ANYTHING WITH YOU IN IT!!!
YOUR SCRIPT WAS A DISORGANIZED PIECE OF CRAP... NEVER INSULT THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE AUDIENCE!!!! AS FAR AS INTELLECT... AMERICANS AREN'T FOOLED BY GORE'S LIES ANYMORE.. SO LEO??? STOP SELLING US HORSESHH**t,,,,,,,,,, JUST CAUSE YOU INVESTED IN EGO SCAMS TOO!!!! SHUT UP OLD MAN!!!! YOU'RE A MEDIOCRE ACTOR, TO BEGIN WITH!!!! AND A HUGE CHEATER ON POOR GIRLFRIEND BAR!!!! GET OFF YOUR EFGO TRIP LEO, WE THE AUDIENCE, ARE MAJOR NORED WITH YOU, AND HOW NOLAN SCREWED UP THE LAST BATMAN!!!!
Dan Gilbert, is that you? LeBron is gone, let it go.
"From BORED WITH LEO AND NOLANS EGO OF JUMBLED SCRIPT PRETENDING MOVIE GOERS ARE NOT SMART ENOUGH TO UNDER" allow me to introduce you to "From TYPOS ARE FOR LIFE, SO ARE BAD SCRIPTS PRETENDING TO BE UHH CEREBAL".
You two should hook up.
Well in my theathre, we got two thirds through the movie and then the power went out, so everyone left without knowing how it ended. just awful.
We went to that same theater for the midnight showing and the same problem. But they didn't shut down the screening - and everybody looked like they had just come out of a suana. We snuck into the other showing - because its hard enough to sit through that flick even in air conditioning! Avoid theater #3 at the SO Arclight!!!
Oh.. and JT ... you didn't have a power outage. That's the way the movie ends. It just suddenly goes dark. (Nolan though it would be cute to betray his audience.) NOT!
Same thing happened during the Aquaman premiere on Entourage, but buck up little buddy, they ended up setting a bunch of records anyways.
LOL...I wonder if the irate moviegoers' tickets will be DEDUCTED from the weekend totals so that there is no way this movie will have a big opening...
I was at the screening. I thought a riot would break out. Never ever had a problem at Arclight till then. Most people had to wait in line at customer service for refunds for 40 minutes followed by an hour wait to get out of the parking lot. Other then seeing Crystal Skull, this was the worst theater going experience of my life.
holy crap, you are stupid.
I believe the projector went out on opening night of Dark Knight at Arclight, as well. Hope they fix it, I'm going tonight. I saw it last week so I can live with a disaster, but my wife is gonna be pissed.
i havent had a good experience in a movie theatre since like 1998 so i been to see the lord of the rings return of the king and nothing since then.. its just aweful .. COMPARED TO HAVING A NICE BIG LCD AND A SICK SOUND SYSTEM not to mention alcohol and backroom breaks and pausing ANY TIME YOU WANT... and if you think 3D makes it worth going.. right... i dont think so... its like going to a public pool when you have your own.. why would you? and now a days even lower class can afford great entertainment systems... on top of that the movie is out within a month or just go to chinatown
I would think Chris Nolan would be far more upset about how the film would look on the bend-y screen at the Dome than the temperature of the theatre.
Hee!
And here I was under the assumption that they were the same person...
We should have been so lucky for the movie to stop at 100 minutes. What a pungent hunk of dung this was.
The projector broke twice during my midnight screening and the place was full of retarded teenagers. Reminded me of why I haven't seen a movie in theaters in 3 years.
Wasn't this the plot of an episode of Entourage? SIMPSONS DID IT!
You have to be one of the dumbest motherfuckers on this planet.. You can't even spell.
I would upvote you if I could, brother.
Same person, different personality.
Man, do I ever hate it when Stephanie Zacharek leaves her caps-lock on.
I love you in a very dirty way.
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