One certainly has to question the intelligence of a movie-theatre owner in Missouri after an unbelievably ill-advised, yet apparently meticulously pre-planned, stunt in which he hired fake gunmen to storm the premiere of Iron Man 3—what could be considered, in some regards, as the North American answer to the Nazi opera in Dusseldorf. Capital 8 Theaters manager Bob Wilkins told his local ABC affiliate “this was planned months in advance and only a few people were upset, but hundreds were entertained.” I’m not so sure those were screams of approval there, Bob.
Of course, the Aurora shooting is much fresher in people’s minds than the Nazi atrocities in Germany; hell, the suspected shooter is still on trial. Furthermore, if there’d been an officer on the scene, somebody definitely would’ve been shot—and not with a cap-gun, either. As ABC reports, “it’s a good thing an off-duty officer wasn’t at the theater because it’s likely the officer would have engaged the actor. Had the actor not complied, the situation could have turned out much worse.” Not just for the rent-a-villian, I’d imagine.
The theatre has since issued an apology on Facebook, stating “We have had many complaints about the members dressed specifically as S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives carrying fake guns. We didn’t clearly tell our customers and some people didn’t realize it was for entertainment purposes only. We apologize that police were called to come out to our theater.” Presumably, they won’t be cancelling Iron Man 3 though, whereas in Germany…
