Edgewater Showing of ‘Dark Night’ Stopped After Man Opens Emergency Door

An Edgewater movie theater showing “The Dark Knight Rises” had to be evacuated Monday night after witnesses said a man pushed open an emergency exit and seemed to be talking to someone outside the theater, according to multiple reports.

Authorities said the man, who was inside the Edgewater Multiplex Cinemas theater where the movie was being shown, opened an emergency exit just before 10:30 p.m., and that witnesses provided police with a description, NorthJersey.com reported.

But when the lights came on, police, believing the man had already returned to his seat, couldn’t find anyone fitting the description, possibly because it was dark and moviegoers couldn’t get a good look at him.

About 100 people were evacuated from the theater roughly 90 minutes into the latest Batman movie after someone called police from inside the theater, NJ.com reported.

When police arrived at the theater on River Road, they halted the movie, and after turning on the house lights, asked whoever had opened the door to come forward. But when nobody did, theater managers made the decision to call off the screening and issued refunds to the crowd, which reports say remained calm, albeit somewhat shaken.

The incident so close to home came in the wake of last week’s shooting in Colorado, during which a gunman killed 12 people and injured dozens more at a midnight screening of the movie, and was one of several scares at theaters across the country since the Aurora shooting, according to the New York Daily News.