EXHAUSTED NATION SPENDS $2 BILLION PROVING IT'S DONE WITH SUPERHERO MOVIES
Ticket buyers say they are sick of the genre, then sprint back to theaters to confirm it in person, repeatedly.
The latest web-slinging blockbuster has crossed $2 billion worldwide, a milestone reached largely by moviegoers who describe themselves as "completely burned out" on superhero content and yet somehow keep ending up in the same auditorium with the same $19 popcorn combo. Exit-poll data suggests the average exhausted fan has now seen the film enough times to qualify for a punch card, if theaters still believed in rewarding loyalty instead of just billing it directly.
"I saw it four times to fully document my burnout," said local moviegoer Craig Mellner, clutching a stub for a 9:45 p.m. screening he described as "purely diagnostic." "The fifth was just for the popcorn math." A grassroots fan club has taken the fatigue thesis further, organizing so-called "fatigue screenings" where members buy full-price tickets, watch only the trailers, then walk out in protest and post the ticket stub online as proof of their exhaustion, a form of activism that studios have noted converts at a 100% box-office rate.
Studio officials, for their part, insist the film's real villain was never the Goblin, the Vulture, or whichever symbiote showed up this time, but the concession stand. "Audiences keep telling us they're tired of these movies," said studio finance spokesperson Denise Halloway, "and we respect that so much we've priced the popcorn combo at a level that ensures they'll need to see it three more times just to feel like they got their money's worth. Roughly 40% of our worldwide gross is popcorn. The Spider-Man movie is basically a very expensive snack delivery vehicle with a plot bolted on for legal reasons."
