Movie Theater Accidentally Deletes Advanced Screening of ‘The Avengers’ for the Press

A lot of people have been waiting a very long time to experience the awesomeness of Joss Whedon’s ‘The Avengers.’ One group of movie critics had to wait just a little bit longer.

The studio behind the bound-to-be-a-blockbuster scheduled a press screening in New York City for several movie critics. The theater had to delay the screening because the projectionist accidentally deleted a digital copy of the movie.



The theater also did not have a backup copy for just such a contingency. So those in attendance had to wait quite a while for the theater to download another copy of the film. Who says digital film is more efficient than good ol’ film reels?

Several film critics in attendance used the downtime to break the news about the delay on their Twitter accounts. Liza Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly said it took more than two hours for the theater to track down another copy to play for the critics. Critic Eric Kohn of the movie blog Screenrush joked “Welcome to the digital age.”

We’re sure the entire time they were waiting for the movie to start, the critics were thinking to themselves, “Why couldn’t this have happened for ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop?’”