A very dedicated superhero movie fan from Wisconsin has seen Captain Marvel so many times he broke a Guinness World Record. The first Marvel movie built around a female lead character, Captain Marvel has been embraced by movie fans everywhere, grossing $1.08 billion worldwide. The film just recently reached another box office milestone in North America, cracking the $400 million mark.

Starring Brie Larson, Captain Marvel debuted the cinematic version of Carol Danvers, a comic book character first introduced in 1968. Like her comic book incarnation, the movie Danvers is an Air Force pilot who acquires superpowers and fights alongside an alien race called the Kree. In the movie, Danvers returns to Earth in the 1990s and discovers her human origins while also forging a friendship with a pre-eyepatch Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Having set up Captain Marvel as part of the MCU, Marvel will now plunge the character into the middle of the final battle against Thanos in the soon-to-be-blockbuster Avengers: Endgame.

Captain Marvel has undoubtedly been a major success for Marvel, and there’s one fan in particular who has contributed to that success more than anyone else. As reported by CBS 58 (via CBR), Wisconsin man Steve Ruppel has now seen the movie in the theater an astonishing 116 times, a feat that gives him the Guinness World Record. Ruppel explained why he chose Captain Marvel in particular for his run at the record:

The non-musical Captain Marvel runs for 123 minutes, so (barring in-movie naps) Ruppel has spent 14,268 minutes watching the film, which equals 237.8 hours or 9.9 days. Not surprisingly, Ruppel said he had to take time off from work in order to hit the multiplex enough times to break the record. Ruppel said that he initially thought it was impossible to break the record, adding, “I wasn’t even sure why it was even a record, but I thought after a while ‘I should probably do that.’” Ruppel said the most times he saw the movie in one day was seven, and explained that he would defeat boredom by paying attention to background details.

“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.”

Ruppel is of course not the only person to perform remarkable feats of Marvel movie watching. Back in 2018, an Avengers: Infinity War fan chronicled his 42 theatrical viewings of the MCU epic via social media. This week, a number of big Marvel fans will participate in an MCU re-watch marathon, which will end with Avengers: Endgame.

Given the huge popularity of Captain Marvel and the rest of the Marvel movies, it’s no surprise to see fans getting incredibly enthusiastic and even going wild with the hype. A few fans like Ruppel are even willing to take their fandom to the next level by testing their sanity and bladder capacity in order to perform grueling feats of film viewing. Some may question the wisdom of such undertakings, but there’s no questioning the dedication of fans who would willingly go so far above and beyond the call of duty to become superheroes of going to movies.

More: Every Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie, Ranked Worst To Best

Source: CBS 58 (via CBR)

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