Theater troupe Improv Everywhere (the people responsible for the annual “no pants subway ride“) today took its movie reenactments to Starbucks with a Spartacus-themed prank.
The trope had actors planted throughout a Manhattan Starbucks. One ordered a drink, giving his name as “Spartacus.” As the drink order is called, the actors gradually begin to join a chorus, all proclaiming themselves to be Spartacus before the “real” Spartacus is revealed: a half-naked man dressed as a roman slave who claims the drink for his own.
The ordeal was a silly recreation of a famous scene from the Stanley Kubrick-directed 1960 movie Spartacus. The actor claiming the drink was taking the role of Kirk Douglas’ Spartacus, the leader of a slave revolt against the Roman Empire.
The Spartacus prank is the penultimate video in Improve Everywhere’s “Movies in Real Life” series. The troupe has hinted that next week’s video will have a Christmas theme.
Other videos in the series have included last week’s lost Harry Potter and a blush-worthy reenactment of that one scene from When Harry Met Sally with 20 women at once. Other parodied movies include Jurassic Park, Rocky II, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
