Mystery fart causes evacuation of a Spider-Man: Brand New Day screening
Hundreds of moviegoers fled a Spider-Man: Brand New Day screening in Cartagena on August 2 after a mystery smell filled the auditorium. Among the crowd holding their noses in the lobby: a guy dressed as Spider-Man. The culprit was never caught.
About halfway through Spider-Man: Brand New Day in Cartagena, Colombia, a smell showed up that no amount of web-slinging could stop.
Hundreds of people got up and left. One of them was dressed as Spider-Man.
What happened
It went down August 2 at the Cine Colombia multiplex inside the Plaza Bocagrande shopping center. The movie was playing, the theater was packed, and then an odor rolled through the auditorium strong enough to end the evening for most of the room.
Video posted to X shows the aftermath: a corridor full of moviegoers, many with hands clamped over their noses, waiting it out in the lobby. A Spider-Man cosplayer stood among them, gamely entertaining the refugees.
The screening was never officially canceled. People just left. A few brave souls went back in to finish the film. Most called it a night.
The culprit got away
Here’s the part that keeps it funny instead of gross. Nobody knows who did it.
The odor was never identified, and no one confessed. Two theories are floating around. One, an audience member who simply couldn’t make it to the restroom in time.
Two, a deliberate prank with a stink bomb or fart spray. Neither has been confirmed, and honestly, both are a little bleak.
The identity of the offender remains a mystery. As one outlet put it, not even Spider-Man could catch this one.
The reactions were the best part
Locals did what locals do, which is roast it.
“To ruin a whole cinema like that, only God knows what that person ate,” one viewer said. Another kept it philosophical: “There’s no respect anymore, but I don’t think anyone is so rotten as to evacuate an entire auditorium.”
Once the lobby footage hit social media, the jokes wrote themselves. Everyone reached for the obvious comic-book bit, a villain nobody in the theater was equipped to fight, a Green Goblin of a different kind, the movie’s real final boss.
The movie itself is doing just fine
The irony is thick, and not only in that auditorium.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a monster hit. It just posted a $927 million global opening, the second-biggest of all time, and it’s sitting around 90% with critics. Audiences everywhere have been raving about it.
One theater in Cartagena filed the lone stinker of a review, and it had nothing to do with the film.
This happens more than you’d think
For anyone tempted to call this a one-off, flatulence has a surprising track record of causing chaos in sealed rooms.
In 2023, Singapore Airlines refunded a couple $1,410 after they fled premium economy to escape a farting dog. A Colombian influencer got banned from an airline after a chemical prank device went off mid-flight.
NASA has even warned astronauts that too much gas in a sealed capsule is a genuine fire hazard.
Cartagena just added a movie theater to the list.
The film survived a $200 million marketing campaign, a punishing release schedule, and the highest expectations in the business. What nearly took it down was one anonymous person and whatever they had for lunch. Some villains you just can’t see coming.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Dexerto — the incident details, the unidentified culprit, the viewer quotes, and the flatulence-chaos precedents
Complex / The Mary Sue — the Cine Colombia and Plaza Bocagrande location, the halfway-through timing, and the stink-bomb-versus-mishap theories
AOL / The Mirror US — the hundreds-fled detail and the Spider-Man cosplayer in the lobby
IBTimes — the $927M opening, the 90% critical score, and the contrast with the film’s reception
@ExxAlerts (X) — the original “horrific fart attack” video and framing