ALEXANDRIA, VA—Setting up barricades and unloading emergency food supplies today as they readied for what may perhaps be the single most commercially successful film of all time, movie theaters across the nation continued urgently preparing for the massive crowds of fans expected to rush their doors for Friday’s premiere of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. “If we don’t guard these exits and reinforce the doors, people will literally break them down,” Regal Cinemas manager Dan Engle said as he mobilized his staff for the Jeremy Renner–Gemma Arterton action-adventure-horror film, which is scheduled to play on all 12 of the theater’s screens during all scheduled showtimes throughout the day. “Folks, I don’t want to be a pain here, but in mere hours we’re going to have hundreds—if not thousands—of screaming Hansel and Gretel fans lined up outside trying to see this film, and if we don’t have a body at every door then these people will, I shit you not, burst into the projection room and steal the movie itself right off the projector.” At press time, officials at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had ordered extra security detail for the film’s director, Tommy Wirkola, until the worldwide pandemonium dies down.

Advertisement