‘Twilight' fans line up: Hurricane Alex not enough to temper vampire afficionados

Despite a possible hurricane bearing down, Brownsville residents wanting a fix of vampires and werewolves lined up at the Cinemark Theater Tuesday for tickets to “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” which premiered at midnight.

On Tuesday afternoon some 50 people were already in line, said assistant manager Luis Garcia.

The movie theater was scheduled to remain open until after the premiere and continue to operate until this afternoon, Garcia said.

For the “Eclipse” premiere, Cinemark had prepared eight screening rooms for the hundreds of moviegoers expected.

Because of the expected storm, some people called the theater asking if they could exchange the advance tickets they had purchased.

“Their tickets are good,” Garcia said. “They can come in another day to watch the movie.”

Among those in line for the midnight premiere were Erica Rios, 27, and Carolina Ayala, 22.

The two had asked for the day off from work and had been in line since Tuesday morning.

“I did all the stuff I needed to do so I could be here today,” said Rios, who planned to go to the midnight showing with a group of friends and family.

Ayala brushed off concerns about Alex, the season’s first named storm, coming ashore with a vengeance.

“I can die happy if I saw the movie,” she said. “I’ll worry about it tomorrow or when it gets here. ... I got here at around 9:30 a.m. and there were already 15 people in front of me.”