Cinema hires fake gunman to storm theater for Iron Man 3 promotion

Management at a Jefferson City, Missouri movie theater came up with what they believed to be a brilliant idea to promote the premiere of the film Iron Man 3. They carefully thought this concept through months in advance and proceeded to carry out their scheme.

What was this publicity stunt you ask? They hired an actor (actors – see our update below) to pretend to be a gunman and storm the theater in full tactical gear with fake weapons drawn. Yes. I am serious…

Retired Army veteran John Molock, who suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), saw the actor as he approached the theater:

“We had just finished watching Iron Man 3. We’re just getting into the car when I spotted a man in full assault gear, carrying what appeared to be a modified M-4 and 9 mm on his side.”

Several moviegoers dialed 911 and when police responded they assumed they were engaging an active shooter investigation. Local police captain Doug Shoemaker stated, in a professional manner, just how stupid the idea was:

“Everything was in place, it’s the opening night of a superhero movie, it’s somebody walking in all-dark clothes, everything pointed to bad things about to happen. There’s really no good that can come of this… It’s an unfortunate lack of wisdom in this particular judgement that hopefully will never occur again.”

Shoemaker pointed out that he was grateful that no off-duty officers were on hand because things could have turned out much worse. I’ll add that the actor in question was darn lucky no one in the theater was carrying and that he managed to escape the situation without at least having had his face rearranged.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, theater manager Bob Wilkins (image above) spoke with ABC17 and absolutely had zero regrets about his decision.

ABC17: Did you take into consideration what happened in Colorado when you were thinking about putting this together?

Bob Wilkins: Absolutely. That’s my number-one priority every day. It’s the safety and security of our guests.

ABC17: No regrets for allowing this publicity stunt?

Bob Wilkins: Nooooo. My job is to entertain people.

And just when you thought this story couldn’t get any crazier, it turns out that the Jefferson City Police SWAT team held an active shooter training at the Goodrich Capital 8 Theaters just a couple of months prior.

UPDATE: The investigators with Reddit found additional photos from the promotion which you can see here as there were multiple actors involved including a dressed up Iron Man. Many of the comments left state it was an ongoing promotion and that the local news didn’t cover the full story.

Via Gawker