My High School Friends and I Snuck Into 8 Mile (2002) But It Wasn’t Easy

Yesterday marked the 20-year anniversary of Eminem winning an Oscar—a thing that meant a lot to me when I was 16. That means it’s also been 20 years and four months and 16 days since my friends and I saw 8 Mile on opening night.

It was one of the most memorable screenings of my youth. Allow me to spin a yarn for you.

Back in 2002, I was in a bad habit of occasionally sneaking into movies. In my defense, this was the year before I got my first job (bussing tables at the Outback Steakhouse), so I didn’t have much money.¹ But I loved movies, and my brain wasn’t fully formed, so I figured it was okay.

One of the local megaplexes, the Carmike Cinemas at The Summit, had the perfect setup for such illicit adolescent activity. On either side of the main entrance, they had a set of doors that only opened from the inside, so they could only be used by people exiting the theater. …Unless you hung out around those doors, held the door open when somebody walked out, and snuck inside.

I’d done this a couple times before. So when my friends DJ and Marshall expressed interest in seeing 8 Mile during our lunch period, I told them about my strategy.² They were little miscreants like me, so they were all the way down.

That Friday night, we showed up at The Summit just in time for the 7:00 screening. Keep in mind, this was opening night for a film that would go on to make more than $50 million that weekend, which was our first mistake. But we were young dumb broke high school kids, as they say.

We stood outside the exit-only doors and waited. Five minutes go by. 10 minutes go by. 15 minutes go by, and not a single person has come through the side doors. The movie was going to start soon, and my friends were losing patience with me and my empty promises.

So DJ did something that made me recoil: He knocked. On the doors that we were very much not supposed to enter for any reason.

And then something even more unexpected happened: An employee, no more than a year or two older than us, opened the doors and peeked out at us. “Y’all trying to sneak in?” he asked. All out of ideas and determined not to go home empty-handed, we said “Yeah, we are.” “Five bucks each and you got it,” he said. So we passed him three Lincolns—which saved us each a few bucks—and he let us through.

When we walked in, there were at least five or six other employees standing there, all high-school-age boys. Just standing there, as if they were holding a team meeting or something.³ They kinda laughed and let us by, impressed with their more opportunistic coworker and what was probably not his first hustle.

I wish I could tell you the story ended there, but our troubles were not over yet.

We hit the bathrooms and then got into the theater just in time for the opening minutes, but by then the house was nearly full. We ended up sitting in a pair of aisle seats along the edge, and I think one of us actually sat on the steps so we wouldn’t have to split up.

Things were going well enough for 30 minutes or so. …Until an employee, one of the guys we passed on our way in, started walking up our aisle and asking to see everyone’s tickets. We were in full-on panic mode. When he got to us, we lied and said we threw our tickets away, and he looked at us sternly and said “I’m gonna have to check with the manager.” And then he left.

My heart sank as I prepared to get kicked out of a movie theater with my two friends (whom I was trying to impress, of course). And then, a couple minutes later, the guy we paid to let us in walks through the theater and right up to us and says: “Y’all are good, I just wanted to fuck with you.” Then he laughed and left. And we never saw him again.

Not only did that young man save us each a few dollars, he gave me an anecdote that I’ve enjoyed telling for over two decades now. I hope he’s still hustling.

8 Mile is now streaming on Peacock, and it is available to rent elsewhere.

1. I’m not alone either. My editor John told me that he snuck into Scary Movie around this same era. (He bought a ticket to a different movie before sneaking into that one, but still.)

2. I promise these are their actual names and not incredibly obvious pseudonyms for a story about 8 Mile. If you know, you know.

3. They were probably waiting to clean the theaters of all the 4:30 showtimes that were yielding us no help in our efforts to sneak in.