A screening of Spider-Man: Brand New Day turned chaotic when dozens of moviegoers were forced to leave their seats due to an overwhelming smell inside the auditorium. The incident occurred at a Cine Colombia location inside the Plaza Bocagrande mall in Cartagena, Colombia, on Sunday, August 2, 2026. As detailed by BroBible, a large group of attendees were seen gathered outside the theater following the disruption.
According to reports circulating on social media, including a video posted to X, the smell was allegedly caused by an attendee passing gas. The post’s caption described the moment as an unusual anecdote in which a strong odor forced people to leave the room. There is no way to confirm exactly what happened, and some viewers online speculated that a stink bomb may have been set off instead.
The film continued playing for the portion of the audience that chose to stay. The incident comes amid a broader resurgence for movie theaters, which are climbing back toward a $35 billion industry mark for the first time since the pandemic began, driven in part by strong turnout from Gen Z audiences.
The chaos happened during one of the year’s biggest opening weekends
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been a major driver of that resurgence, pulling in more than $900 million globally during its opening weekend alone. The film’s popularity has been credited with reviving interest in the superhero genre after several years of declining box office numbers for the category. Similar unpredictable crowd moments have picked up attention online recently too, including a report about a job loss story that generated similar debate this week.
Cine Colombia does maintain formal policies for certain service issues, though they apply narrowly. The company’s payment reversal rules only cover electronic commerce transactions made online or through a call center, and they apply to five specific circumstances such as fraud, unauthorized charges, or a defective product, according to the company’s refund policy.
Those reversal rules do not apply to in-person box office purchases, and the policy notes that a consumer acting in bad faith during a reversal request could face financial penalties. The policy does not address situations like the one in Cartagena, where the disruption stemmed from conditions inside the auditorium rather than a transaction dispute. A similarly chaotic public dispute drew attention elsewhere online recently, including a report about a declined EBT card at a Walmart checkout that also went viral this week.
No official statement addressing the incident had been issued by Cine Colombia or theater staff at the time of reporting.
Published: Aug 4, 2026 08:30 pm