I can see it easily happening. People were not "tuned in" back then as we are now. People used the newspapers to see what was playing and what times where available. Trailers weren't available 24/7 for instant viewing. You saw previews before the movie you were about to watch. The TV advertising wasn't so prevalent for movies. My parents would go to the movies and see whatever was playing on the one screen the theater had when they were kids, not just go to see a specific movie at the cineplex with 30 different screens. Things were very different back then.
This was still somewhat the case in the late 90s and early 00s before Youtube and IMDB were really big. We'd go watch Star Trek Nemesis because it had Star Trek in the name or watch whatever looked good in the trailers last time we went. What was your alternative? Watch it on your CRT tv a year later, probably with ads? Rental existed, but at least where I lived it was very uncommon. I honestly miss it. Driving to the cinema with a bunch of friends, sometimes not even certain what we'd watch and how it would turn out. Really great! Recently I visited an old friend at his new (to me) apartment and it came up that he had kept all his cinema tickets from back in the day. We went through all of them swimming in nostalgia, a little blurry-eyed, while our wives laughed at us.
> late 90s and early 00s
I remember going to Moulin Rouge without knowing it was a musical!