Any sentence starting with “Florida man” is a dangerous one. There’s a level of unpredictability that goes with it—usually ending in murder, mayhem, or some sort of ominous alligator situation. But we have a different sort of Florida Man story, today. It’s a bit bonkers but doesn’t involve anything particularly nefarious. Although our bank accounts would probably disagree. You see, a man in Florida has just set a record for “most cinema productions attended of the same film.” He saw Spider-Man: No Way Home an astounding 292 times.
To be fair, Spider-Man: No Way Home is a good movie. But that is just too many times. According to Guinness World Records, Ramiro Alanis watched 720 hours—a.k.a. 30 days—worth of No Way Home. And he achieved this feat between December 16, 2021, when the film dropped, to March 15, 2022. (We first saw this at Gizmodo.) He even apparently went to back-t0-back screenings—five times a day–for weeks. Did he clap for Matt Murdock or whoop for each of the Spider-Mans at every viewing? We can only hope so. He did say Andrew Garfield’s redemption arc was a highlight across the many, many viewings.
This isn’t Alanis’s first brush with the record. He first achieved it with 191 screenings of Avengers: Endgame in 2019. However, after a man named Arnaud Klein broke the record by seeing Kaamelott: First Installment 204 times, Alanis upped the ante for his next go. He shattered his own personal record and Guinness World Records’ seeing Spider-Man: No Way Home. And he set a pretty high bar for anyone looking to beat him.
However, such a feat doesn’t come without costs—financial or otherwise. For starters, there are some strict rules about what counts as a full viewing. Alanis couldn’t do anything but watch—no bathroom breaks, no phone checks, no quick snoozes whatsoever. (As someone who had to go to the bathroom for the last 45 mins of No Way Home but couldn’t leave for a quick break because I was watching the movie for work reasons, this is astonishing to me.) Plus, the viewer must remain planted in their seats through the credits, which is now, thanks to Marvel, somewhat of a moviegoing norm. To verify, the viewers submits a ticket stub and Guinness World Records verifies with theater attendants.
And then there’s the staggering financial cost. Alanis suggested that it cost somewhere in the ballpark of $3,400. Just thinking about the number gives me hives. But Alanis didn’t just reclaim the title for himself, but also for his late grandmother, who was very supportive of his Endgame mission.
At this point, Alanis claims he can pretty much recite the movie from memory. And to be honest, we’d love to see it. Alanis set the bar for the record pretty high with his nearly 300 No Way Home screenings. But as a Marvel fan, we can’t help but wonder how many times he’ll inevitably see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. For his eyes’ sake, we hope it’s under 50.
