Our best candidate for the role of a criminal. Screenshot: Robin Beck (Getty Images)
In one version of Batman’s origin story, a young Bruce Wayne descends into the caves beneath his family’s estate to discover his greatest fear: a swarm of bats. This inspires him to become the one who scares him, and he embarks on a path of unorthodox exposure therapy that involves dressing up as a giant flying rodent and driving a cool bat-shaped car.
With that precedent in mind, we’re now waiting to see what the future holds for all the would-be Bruce Waynes who attended last Friday’s Batman screening only to find themselves in the company of a confused bat.
KXAN reports that audiences at the Moviehouse & Eatery in Austin, Texas were surprised to see life imitate art in the form of a bat flying around their theater. When everyone realized that the creature was not an immersive theatrical experiment, but in fact just a real bat, “management put the film on pause and made several attempts to get the bat out.”
Because the theater staff are not, generally speaking, trained rodent fighters, the bat was not caught until animal control was called in to remove it. (We assume they did this by releasing tiny penguins, stuffed animals, and a chihuahua dressed as the Joker to kick him out of the building.)
Moviehouse & Eatery management offered to compensate for the distraction, but apparently “most viewers” decided to stay and watch the movie anyway, probably because they knew it wasn’t every day you get to see a movie premiere. Batman with a real bat as a guest of honor.
The theatre’s CEO has since stated that she believes the bat was released as a prank and that she will “add extra security and check all bags when a guest enters” to ensure no one else tries, such as sneak a pig into a performance of the Pig, or a subversive cow to a re-watch of The First Cow.
[via Boing Boing]
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