A movie theater allegedly using an Amazon Prime account to show films has gone viral on TikTok, racking up over 2 million views. Users have weighed in on the legality, as well as the humor, of cinema chains being trapped in the streaming wars.
In the original video, @rachel.m00re shows a dark theater ready for a viewing. But instead of previews playing, there’s a Prime Video homepage.
Users watch as someone in control of the screen navigates past banners for Amazon’s newest releases like Being the Ricardos.
“We’re going to be watching this on an old app?” says one movie goer. “Are you kidding me?”
Patrons then watch an employee select letters in the search bar, looking for the 2018 animated version of The Grinch. When the movie is finally selected, an error message occurs.
A screen saying “Maximum videos playing” is shown, indicating that the account is being used to support too many viewings at once. The crowd sounds disappointed, but many can be heard laughing at the situation.
Users also found the video hilarious.
“Woulda lost it if he pulled up 123movies,” said @lilwheelz69.
“They gonna start googling ‘thegrinchfullmovie.googledocs’” commented @heybowieboy.
“Imagine if it said ‘Are you still watching?’ halfway through the movie,” said @epeprprppe.
“This is extremely illegal and against Amazon ToS and copyright in general. Also hilarious,” shared @willnavidson.
“The poor 16 year old working was probably panicking when they got that error lol” added @andrewradman. The TikToker responded to this comment explaining that it took 35 minutes for the worker to get the movie playing.
It’s unclear where this incident took place. Amazon and @rachel.m00re did not immediately return the Daily Dot’s request for comment.