By now, we all know how much that Spider-Man: No Way Home is both a pretty good movie and also one that got basically the entire multiverse to go to a theatre and see it. Some saw it once, some saw it probably two or three times, if they had the time and money to allow multiple rewatches. But for one particular fan, seeing Tom Holland swing webs with Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire a handful of times wasn’t enough.
The Guinness Book of World Records has reported that Florida man Ramiro Alanis went and saw No Way Home in theatres 292 times. Starting from December 16 and stopping at March 15, the total runtime equates to 720 hours, or basically an entire month. Ramiro isn’t sure how much he spent on tickets overall, but he thinks it’s around $US3400 ($4,720). For three months until theatres stopped showing it, he was watching it back to back, equating to almost 12 and a half hours of movie. At this point, he said that he could recite the film’s dialogue with the movie…which he did, out loud during his final screening, in an empty theatre. Not a bad party trick, if nothing else.
Per Guinness rules, he also had to watch the movie from start to end; no sleeping or bathroom breaks (11 of his watches were disqualified because of said breaks), no checking his phone, and he had to stay through to the credits, which he was already used to. He then had to hold onto his ticket stub and got a statement from a theatre employee confirming he watched the film. Juggling all of that with his family and career as a personal trainer wasn’t easy, and he admitted that late night viewings in particular were the hardest ones due to headaches after seeing the movie four times earlier in the day.
For Alanis, the aim was to reclaim his title of attending the most cinema productions of the same film; he first acquired it in 2019 by seeing Avengers: Endgame 191 times. (The previous record holder belonged to Joanne Connor in Australia, who saw Bohemian Rhapsody 108 times in early 2019.) In 2021, though, his record was broken by one Arnaud Klein, who saw the French comedy-fantasy film Kaamelott: The First Instalment 204 times in theatres. After his grandmother Jauny passed in 2019 before he could earn his Guinness title, he wanted to break the record in her honour. “She was my #1 fan,” he told Guinness, “and I want to remain the record holder.” Now that he’s got his title, he’s pretty dead set on holding onto it, and gave a warning to anyone looking to try and come for his crown: “If anyone tries to break my record again, I want them to think twice before attempting it.”