Movie Theater Accidentally Plays Fifty Shades Freed Instead Of Black Panther

There's a lot that's surprising about Marvel's new movie Black Panther. The flick introduces us to a brand new, technologically advanced society in Wakanda. It features diverse characters in lead roles we might not ordinarily see. Even the basic structure is very unusual for a superhero movie. However, one audience expecting to see Black Panther actually got a very different surprise. Instead of cool vibranium-oriented gadgets, they got the first few minutes of Fifty Shades Freed.

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The video shows some footage from the early part of Fifty Shades Freed, and the audience isn't having it. In fact, among the voices in the crowd you can hear one girl exclaim that it is "the opposite movie" before the theater fixes the issue. The mix-up happened at Atlantic Station theater in Atlanta on opening weekend for Black Panther, which has sold out many places.

According to what one moviegoer told Inside Edition, at first people in the theater thought that they were getting yet another preview for a movie. Once they realized what was really going on, the theater got quite a bit more rowdy, which is what you can see in the video from Stephen Waites, above. The mistake was corrected after about 10 minutes, which was just enough time to see Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey get married and flit off onto their kinky honeymoon on a boat.

fifty shades of black panther

Elsewhere, Black Panther screenings seemingly went off without a hitch. Earlier this weekend, there was even a block of time at the famed Hollywood Arclight where every single theater was showing Black Panther, due to demand. The movie is expected to make a boatload of money this weekend, and is on pace to not only be the best-selling MCU movie in pre-sales but also be the best-selling superhero movie in terms of ticket pre-sales.

Thus far, we haven't heard any other reports of theaters accidentally showing the wrong movie, but fortunately, if any of them do, you can count on the footage appearing on social media almost immediately. Just don't count on them getting the same level of attention as this one. There's just something about paying to see an action-oriented superhero movie and instead getting a hyper-sexual film like Fifty Shades Freed that feels almost perfect.

In case if you're wondering what would be entirely perfect, that would be thinking you paid for Aristocats and instead getting The Aristocrats.

Jessica Rawden
Managing Editor

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways.