Mega-fan watches 'Captain Marvel' in cinemas 116 times

Serial record-breaker Steve Ruppel claims he smashed a previous world title with his movie marathon

Steve Ruppel attends another 'Captain Marvel' screening. Twitter.

One American man has done more than his bit to keep Captain Marvel in box-office rankings, after watching the superhero film in cinemas 116 times.

In doing so, Wisconsin chiropractor Steve Ruppel claims to have snatched the Guinness World Record for "the most cinema productions attended – same film" from Anthony "Nem" Mitchell. Mitchell watched Avengers: Infinity War 103 times in Charlotte, North Carolina, by 19 July 2018, according to Guinness' website.

That means Ruppel spent over 242 hours in cinemas watching Carol Danvers and Nick Fury save the world, and he says he took time off work, took long lunch breaks to fit in screenings, and watched the movie on weekends to amass his total. The most screenings he endured on a single day was seven.

Ruppel told his local radio station that he didn’t stop at 104 screenings to take the record, in the hope that by carrying on to 116, he wouldn’t have to re-break his achievement any time soon.

"To be official, I have to have certain pictures taken, like in front of a movie poster, and I need to have two written witness statements saying that I was actually there," he said. "So I'm trying to think, if anyone wanted to break this, I really don't want to re-break it. Because this has been pretty tough. It's been a finite amount of time, but I don't think I'm going to try this one again."

The superfan does admit that he got quite bored of the movie during his marathon, but amused himself by focusing on the minor details, like working out the date of a scene featuring a calendar in shot by checking when the full moon took place in June 1995, the month on the calendar.

As for why he chose a two-hour-plus film to set his record, rather than saving himself as much as 50 hours by choosing a 90-minute kids' film from Disney, for example, the record breaker had it all planned out – he needed a film with a long cinema run.

"I love superhero movies, and so this was a pretty good fit. I knew it was going to be around for a while, and I thought it would probably be a good choice for this particular record. Looking back on it now, I might almost consider a Disney movie, because they're usually shorter and probably around for a while, but that singing would drive me crazy. It really would," he said.

This isn’t the first time Ruppel has broken a World Record; he currently holds five, including one for wearing the most T-shirts to run a half marathon, and the quickest time to drink a litre of gravy. Step aside Usain Bolt.