Editor's note: The specific parameters of Ruppel's record has been updated from a previous version of the story.

ROTHSCHILD - No, Steve Ruppel isn't lazy, and he doesn't live in his parents' basement, contrary to what internet commenters are saying. 

But he did do something recently that required a lot of sitting: He watched a movie on the big screen more than 116 times since the beginning of March, setting what is believed to be a new Guinness World Record for the amount of times a person has seen the same flick while it is being shown in theaters. Ruppel said he chose "Captain Marvel'" for the experiment because of his love of superhero movies. 

Guinness has not yet verified the record, but Ruppel has been collecting photos and witness statements to send into the organization to help move the process along. 

Ruppel started thinking about the feat a few months ago, when he saw a tweet reporting a man in North Carolina had seen "Avengers: Infinity War" 103 times. At first he thought it was an insane idea. Then he thought about it more.

"So I tried to plan the logistics of it and decided to just go for it," he said. 

The first showing that Ruppel saw the film was at 9:50 p.m. March 7. Since then, he's taken days off work (he owns Ruppel Chiropractic in Weston), taken long lunches and dedicated his weekends to watching the movie. The longest stint he's endured is seven back-to-back showings, with the longest break being 30 minutes, just enough time to run to a nearby Denny's and eat a stack of pancakes.

"(Seven back-to-back showings) was not good," he said with a laugh. "I mean, it was still early on, so there was still some energy and excitement with it, but it was just really long." 

Ruppel previously earned a few other wild world records: most donuts stacked in a minute (11) and fastest time to lace a shoe, which have both since been bested; and most T-shirts worn during a half marathon (60) and fastest time to drink a liter of gravy, both of which still stand. He set the T-shirt record last May at the Journeys Marathon in Eagle River, with a time of 2 hours and 40 minutes. 

It's the gravy accomplishment that drew the attention of Captain Marvel herself, actress Brie Larson, on Monday night during the Los Angeles red carpet premiere of "Avengers: Endgame," in which she again played the superhero. 

"I'm completely amazed that anyone would want to look at my face for that long," she said. "I also read that he has a record for drinking a gallon [it was a liter] of gravy, so I think this guy is very cool." 

Ruppel hasn't kept track of the exact number of times he's watched the movie; he just knows it's over 116 times. And he plans to keep watching "Captain Marvel," even though it's no longer showing in Rothschild at Cedar Creek Cinema. 

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"It's kind of like if you run a marathon, you don't keep checking your watch," he said. "So I didn't keep count at all. ... In my mind, I was like, 'This is so intense that I'm not sure if I can even do it.' So I didn't want to find out at 50 and figure that I was only halfway. I knew I had a lot so I just had to keep plugging along." 

As for the movie itself, Ruppel said "Captain Marvel" is better than some of its online reviews suggested. 

"At first, I thought that the movie could have been better, and I thought it was going to be a really long road and that that I should have picked a better movie," he said. "But it has come to grow on me." 

Ruppel said that after he sat for more than 240 hours watching the movie, he wouldn't recommend it to people as a professional chiropractor. He said he needed a few adjustments since he began the process and has endured headaches from all of the sitting. 

But, he said, he won't discourage anyone from otherwise achieving their goals, even if they seem crazy. 

"I am a fan of people having wild goals and chasing them," he said. 

Contact Laura Schulte at (715) 496-4088 or Follow her on Twitter @schultelaura


Ruppel to set another guinness world record Daily Herald

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