No Guardians of the Galaxy for You

YOU HAD ONE JOB. (Then it happened AGAIN.) @RegalMovies #rva #GuardiansOfTheGalaxy pic.twitter.com/DUbyAuLDlu

— Dean Browell (@dbrowell) August 1, 2014

The reviews for Guardians of the Galaxy are quite positive, but that doesn’t help much when you go to a theater and they show the wrong movie. Some people went to see Guardians of the Galaxy on its opening night, but were instead shown Rise of the Guardians, the 2012 animated film. The reactions were immediately posted on Twitter.

"omg," one moviegoer tweeted. "they started playing rise of the guardians instead of guardians of the galaxy."

How in the galaxy did that happen?

"EVERYONE IN THE THEATRE IS CRYING," the tweeter added.

Then it happened again ... and again, possibly in more than one location, according by the tweets.

A Regal Cinema theater in Virginia tried a reset, but after previews, the wrong movie began again. Maybe the third time would be the charm? No.

Dean Browell, who was sitting in the audience with his 10-year-old daughter, says they sat through 15 minutes of previews, followed by five minutes of the animated movie before an employee popped in to say they were trying to fix the situation.

The audience then withstood the same 15 minutes of previews again … only for Rise of the Guardians to start playing once more. At this point, the theater offered to give people tickets to a later 3D Imax showing, and about half the people at the 2D screening took them up on the offer.

But the other screening was too late for the Browells, so they persevered.

"There was a 10 minute wait, then the lights went down again and the third go of previews started, this time with the new Interstellar one, which gave us hope," Browell tells The Hollywood Reporter.

No luck. Rise started playing a third time — to major expletives from the agitated crowd.

Browell and the other audience members got a refund, tickets for another showing, and a movie poster. Maybe today’s showings will be pre-screened to make sure the labels are correct, because no one likes to be rickrolled when they’ve already bought the ticket, the popcorn, and the drinks.