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.

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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.

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

"It was now 9:15 p.m., from an 8 p.m. movie," says Browell. "Those left in the theater stormed out and then joined a line 50-people long trying to get their money back, anything. We were so disappointed."

Don't worry, true believers. This story has a happy ending. The theater refunded their tickets and gave them a poster as well as tickets to a Friday show.

A rep for Regal did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company tweeted this to Browell Friday:

@dbrowell We hope things went better today. We're very sorry. No excuses for what happened last night. http://t.co/yKHWd6GIKf — Regal Cinemas (@RegalMovies) August 1, 2014

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Oddly, this does not appear to be an isolated incident. A girl in New Jersey also tweeted Thursday that Rise of the Guardians had been shown at a Regal screening of Guardians of the Galaxy.

omg they started playing rise of the guardians instead of guardians of the galaxy EVERYONE IN THE THEATRE IS CRYING pic.twitter.com/BOhaCboVsH — maddie (@thestorysofxr) August 1, 2014

CinemaBlend reported that Regal had been showing children-friendly matinees featuring Rise of the Guardians. The site theorizes an employee must have labeled Rise as simply Guardians.

Guardians of the Galaxy, from director James Gunn, may pass $90 million at the box office in its domestic debut.

Email: Aaron.Couch@THR.com

Twitter: @AaronCouch