Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Judge Bryant, and Jerry's over there. So
Speaker 1: let's just call this stuff you should shall we. Hey,
Speaker 1: that's a good name for a show. Yeah. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I came up with that. You did, You're the inventor.
Speaker 1: Then from that was hatched all of the stuff podcasts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean how Stuff Works stuff. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think you're not you're selling yourself short.
Speaker 1: It's okay. So this is another one of our movie
Speaker 1: centric podcasts that people seem to love. Um, we've done
Speaker 1: all kinds of things, from exploitation films, two movies that
Speaker 1: change filmmaking, to how films are rated, the m n
Speaker 1: p a A How TV ratings work. Yeah, ten exploitation films, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a good one, and some movies that changed filmmaking.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's all the stuff you just said. Yeah,
Speaker 1: before we get going here, buddy, we need a blanket
Speaker 1: spoiler because we're gonna be talking about movies that had
Speaker 1: their endings changed and uh so this is your fair
Speaker 1: warning that most of them are old movies. Most of
Speaker 1: this information is out there, of course, but if you're
Speaker 1: one of those people who gets really upset by this
Speaker 1: kind of thing, you may want to um. You've been warned.
Speaker 1: You've been warned, And now drum roll, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about audience testing, which is depending on the filmmaker and
Speaker 1: the film can be a really super awesome, valuable tool
Speaker 1: a right, it can also be like a terrible the
Speaker 1: worst thing that's ever happened to you. And apparently even
Speaker 1: if you believe in the system, it's a terrible experience,
Speaker 1: says Ron Howard. Yeah, he's he's a fame all not
Speaker 1: famous for but he um is on record along with
Speaker 1: his producing partner Brian graycer for who. By the way,
Speaker 1: do you notice about Brian Grazer best haarent show business? Well, clearly, yeah,
Speaker 1: but he has the habit of taking frame pictures of
Speaker 1: himself over to people's houses and when they're not looking
Speaker 1: like plants them among their family photos. That's pretty awesome,
Speaker 1: pretty cool. That reminds me. I know, you hate George
Speaker 1: Clinty's guts, but there's there's a famous uh practical he's
Speaker 1: a big practical joker and he he prepared this one
Speaker 1: over the course of like a year, supposedly told like
Speaker 1: his best friends that he had taken up painting. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that just kept that going and going, and then like
Speaker 1: gave some of his close friends he's awful, awful paintings,
Speaker 1: and you know you're kind of expected to hang it up.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, thanks, George. Yeah, that's a pretty good one.
Speaker 1: This is great. Umbody felt so good about himself after that,
Speaker 1: so glib so Ron Howard and his producing partner Brian
Speaker 1: Greats are are on record is saying that they really
Speaker 1: can get a lot out of it, and like what
Speaker 1: they would hate is to put a movie out and
Speaker 1: find out there's something they really easily could have corrected.
Speaker 1: They either like confused or upset and an audience as
Speaker 1: a whole. But he also said it's terrible to go through,
Speaker 1: Like even when it's a good a good experience, it's
Speaker 1: never a good experience. And that's um somebody who believes
Speaker 1: in the system. So if you don't believe in the
Speaker 1: system and you still have to go through it, like
Speaker 1: Robert Altman did, He's not a test audience kind of guy. No,
Speaker 1: can you imagine putting him through that that's like letting
Speaker 1: all of the towns ladies bring Boo Radley that the
Speaker 1: pies for killing Bob Yule. You know, you can't put
Speaker 1: Robert Altman through the audience testing system. Who did they? Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, a dummy because uh, yeah he was.
Speaker 1: He was a Maverick filmmaker. My brother and my Emily
Speaker 1: worked on movies with him. It's pretty neat legend. I know,
Speaker 1: it's good stuff. I wish I could tell a couple
Speaker 1: of the stories. But but I mean, did you expect
Speaker 1: to get rich off of a Robert Altman movie? No,
Speaker 1: apparently these people did. I wonder what his top grossing
Speaker 1: movie ever was. Probably The Player or Mashed. I'll bet
Speaker 1: it was mash movies didn't gross that much back then.
Speaker 1: That Yeah, but it's it's a perennial classic. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: The Player was great. Yeah, I mean he's He's made
Speaker 1: a lot of great movies and some kind of stinkers
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, but a lot of classics. Likenville ever
Speaker 1: seen Nashville? No, I never saw in Nashville. So good.
Speaker 1: So the Player shortcuts? Um, I didn't see the uh
Speaker 1: the Lake Wobegone one with Lindsay Lohan for some reason.
Speaker 1: What Yeah, they did a pry Home companion. Yeah, with
Speaker 1: Lindsay Lohan. That's just weird. And um Meryl Street it
Speaker 1: was like, not a good it's getting casting director super drunk.
Speaker 1: I just have a point out photos head shots, and
Speaker 1: then that's how we'll cast this. Uh, and then McCabe
Speaker 1: and ms miller and that's a classic as well. Never
Speaker 1: even heard of it. More in Batty liked mash though.
Speaker 1: That was a good one. It was um so. Ron
Speaker 1: Howard calls the process brutal and hideous. He said, even
Speaker 1: if it's going well, it's not fun. Uh. Francis Ford
Speaker 1: Coppola is somewhat responsible, although they have tested movies all
Speaker 1: the way back in the thirties. Yeah, when audiences said,
Speaker 1: you know that somewhere over the Rainbow song really slows
Speaker 1: things down, it's at Thank goodness they didn't listen, because
Speaker 1: that became one of the most iconic singing performances ever
Speaker 1: in a movie. Yeah, and apparently pointing that out is
Speaker 1: a really good way to talk somebody out of cutting
Speaker 1: something that a test audience. Yeah, I think about Somewhere
Speaker 1: over the Rainbow. Chief. So when Coppola was making Apocalypse
Speaker 1: Now he um had focus groups, and yeah, I would
Speaker 1: not have guessed that. Well, he that movie. You've seen
Speaker 1: The Hearts of Darkness, right, No, the documentary about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really that he had a lot of studio heat
Speaker 1: coming down on him. You know you've got a great
Speaker 1: movie when the documentary about your great movie is a
Speaker 1: great movie. Yeah, that's a good point. It's really good.
Speaker 1: I think his wife made that, although that's not necessarily true.
Speaker 1: The best worst movie was a great documentary, and Trolls
Speaker 1: two was not a good movie in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. I've never heard the best worst movie. It's
Speaker 1: about have you ever heard of Trolls? To? Hear Antrols? So,
Speaker 1: I guess I've heard Antrols Too, apparently made by totally
Speaker 1: different filmmakers, completely unconnected story wise and everything. This is
Speaker 1: just Trolls to And this documentary caught up with the
Speaker 1: people from Trolls Too, because it became like kind of
Speaker 1: this cool hipster thing to like, look at how terrible
Speaker 1: this movie is flat like the Room Um and this
Speaker 1: documentary kind of followed this movement and went and found
Speaker 1: the people who were in this movie who had no
Speaker 1: idea this was going on and then like basically puts
Speaker 1: them on the road, going around promoting showings of Trolls
Speaker 1: too and just living it up. That was great documentary.
Speaker 1: The documentary is good movie? Was it good? Right? So
Speaker 1: I ate my own words understood now he didn't. But
Speaker 1: I think one of your pals from UCB is in
Speaker 1: it Controls too in the best worst movie the documentary.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, one of the founders. No, not Matt Besser.
Speaker 1: It might be, yes, it might be Matt Best. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know, one of the guys from you. There's
Speaker 1: like a bunch of UCB people in it. Yeah, but okay,
Speaker 1: I got you. Besser was one of the founding members though,
Speaker 1: with Amy Poehler and uh Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh.
Speaker 1: This maybe Matt Walsh is the one that was in
Speaker 1: old school, right, Yeah, so this is the other Matt.
Speaker 1: I think he might be in it. Yeah, he's a
Speaker 1: good guy. He listened to our show. Proved me wrong.
Speaker 1: Matt proved me wrong. Razorbacks, that's for him. He's an
Speaker 1: Arkansas fan. Or he just really likes Razorbacks. He's an
Speaker 1: Arkansas guy. Yeah, he's just a fan of the pig
Speaker 1: are we had an ad break yet not yet, not
Speaker 1: until I finished the story about Coppola. Um He when
Speaker 1: he was making Apocalypse Now hired a man named Joe
Speaker 1: Farrell or Farrell to help with marketing, and Farrell said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I see a pretty big opportunity here,
Speaker 1: and so he partnered up with Katherine Katherine Para and
Speaker 1: formed the National Research Group. UM. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't think they're still exclusive, but at the time signed
Speaker 1: all the studios to an exclusive contract to do their
Speaker 1: audience testing. And I think they're still the top dog
Speaker 1: in audience testing, even though I think there are other
Speaker 1: companies that do it. Now. This is the company with
Speaker 1: the extraordinarily secretive name n RG, the National Research Group. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they also do like contract hits I think for
Speaker 1: the CIA and the n S A. No, but they
Speaker 1: don't have a website that I could find, Like I
Speaker 1: was trying to just get a little information about the company.
Speaker 1: But they so they're a division of Nielsen. Well, which
Speaker 1: of course they're super secretive. We already think they are.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so it's crazy like this, it's like a cabal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, very much. So Randy Quaid was right, you
Speaker 1: might be uh. And they don't just do audience testing.
Speaker 1: They also, back when people had telephones, would do a
Speaker 1: lot of um, just random calling and saying like market research,
Speaker 1: like did you know this movie was coming out? Um,
Speaker 1: it's called awareness. Yeah, awareness campaigns and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And then they split you into four quadrants, right, which
Speaker 1: is the four quadrants that everyone on the planet is
Speaker 1: divided into. Uh, men under twenty five, men over twenty five,
Speaker 1: women under twenty five, and women over That's right, And
Speaker 1: that's it. There's the division of importance. At age you
Speaker 1: cross over and get put out to pasture basically. All right.
Speaker 1: So that's a the longest setup in history. So wait
Speaker 1: a minute. I want to make sure I understand what
Speaker 1: you're saying, because I made a lot of jokes in
Speaker 1: in the middle of all this they were flying. But
Speaker 1: you're saying that n RG, the National Research Group, UM,
Speaker 1: came out of focus groups done for apocalypse. Now, yes,
Speaker 1: that's the way I understand it. Wow, Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: not know that. Yeah, but they were already doing focus groups,
Speaker 1: but this company really ran with it, I think in
Speaker 1: the corner of the industry. Yeah, I got to all right,
Speaker 1: So let's take that promised break, and we'll talk more
Speaker 1: about audience testing right after this. Al Right, back with
Speaker 1: audience testing. Um, there's many different reasons to test your movie. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes if it's a comedy, they will literally do multiple
Speaker 1: screenings just to test little bits and little jokes. That
Speaker 1: makes sense to me if you're testing a comedy, totally
Speaker 1: makes sense because a couple of comedy writers that you
Speaker 1: put into like a room and say, write this hilayerous
Speaker 1: movie or take this dog of a movie and punch
Speaker 1: it up with some jokes. It's very subjective. It might
Speaker 1: sound funny to you, but then you're a movie executive
Speaker 1: and you had like a three scotch launch, so everything
Speaker 1: seems kind of funny right now, you know what I mean? Right,
Speaker 1: So I get I get that, and then like this
Speaker 1: joke landed, this joke didn't, this joke was too far,
Speaker 1: and the like went against like what the what the
Speaker 1: character we've developed so far? That and that to me
Speaker 1: makes sense, Like I see audience testing to that end.
Speaker 1: For sure, you see the value. But if it's like
Speaker 1: should this explosion be more explosive, well, should this guy's
Speaker 1: brain splatter like more or less? Well, with the violence,
Speaker 1: you have a point they that is something they will
Speaker 1: also test for it. It like, are you turned off
Speaker 1: by the amount of violence? Could we dial it back
Speaker 1: a little bit? Yeah? What was the movie that was
Speaker 1: given an example in this article of of something that
Speaker 1: was found to be too violent? Good Fellas? Yes, that
Speaker 1: was in a Mental Floss article, right, yeah, yeah, Goodfellas.
Speaker 1: The audience like he had and that was the first
Speaker 1: movie scorsesey had ever tested, and um, yeah, that's another
Speaker 1: guy I don't see like testing stuff. I'm really surprised
Speaker 1: about Apocalypse mat Yeah. Well, like I said, it was
Speaker 1: studio heat, Yeah, I gotch um, Yeah, scorsese I think
Speaker 1: like forty or fifty people walked out in the first
Speaker 1: ten minutes because of the violence. And they said that
Speaker 1: they didn't like that third act where you know, just
Speaker 1: that they thought it was too intense and apparently very
Speaker 1: drawn out, way more drawn out than it even is now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they thought the ending of Good Fellows is too intense, right,
Speaker 1: and again very drawn out. So he went to a
Speaker 1: quick cut montage thing, which actually ended up making it
Speaker 1: better because Henry Hill is like coked to the gills
Speaker 1: at this point, and like that whole thing where like
Speaker 1: he's looking driving, watching the helicopter that's following him. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's like chop, chop, chop. It really gets the
Speaker 1: point across it was. It was very effective. So it
Speaker 1: worked in that case. I think, yes, right, the system works. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. It worked in that case. Um,
Speaker 1: So how these things work is if you live in
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles area and you go to the mall,
Speaker 1: or if you're even in a movie line, you've probably
Speaker 1: been approached or seeing the people with clipboards. Um, don't
Speaker 1: run away because they're not trying to sell you something.
Speaker 1: They're trying to give you something, which is a free screening.
Speaker 1: It's true, and they'll come and sign you up there.
Speaker 1: I ask if you're interested, Hey, we got a new
Speaker 1: uh Owen Wilson movie that we're screening in Burbank next
Speaker 1: Friday night. And everybody starts murmuring, oh, I love them.
Speaker 1: He's a national treasure, and everybody starts signing up. What's
Speaker 1: with the nose? Um, he got a broken when he
Speaker 1: was younger. It looks like more than once. I like
Speaker 1: that didn't fix it though, Yeah, he was a smart alec.
Speaker 1: That thing is just like so crooked and He's just like, yep,
Speaker 1: this is me. He said. He always expected to do
Speaker 1: something like go into advertising or whatever. But if you're
Speaker 1: a buddy of Wes anderson Is from a young age,
Speaker 1: are going into movies. Sorry, I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: him and his nose. Yeah, so, um, you're gonna get approached.
Speaker 1: Like I said, Uh, probably in l A. But they
Speaker 1: do test all over the country. Because we've talked about
Speaker 1: will it play in Peoria. Sometimes they want to go
Speaker 1: to Ohio and see what you know, someone outside of
Speaker 1: the l A area feels about the movie. Right. But
Speaker 1: the reason that your chances are vastly higher of being
Speaker 1: asked to be in a test audience for a movie
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles is because a lot of times the
Speaker 1: people working on the movie who live in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: have to attend these things because not only do they
Speaker 1: want to um, they want to get the feedback from it,
Speaker 1: which we'll find out about. They also want to experience
Speaker 1: it firsthand, so they get a real feel for how
Speaker 1: the audience is is responding. Yeah, and if you're eighteen
Speaker 1: to thirty four, you're more likely to get approached because
Speaker 1: that's the sweet spot of course that you talked about
Speaker 1: If you're older than that, then forget it. No one
Speaker 1: cares about you. No one cares about your. Give up
Speaker 1: all of your dreams and work and yep, smoke a pipe,
Speaker 1: be quiet. That's right. Um. If you are an assistant
Speaker 1: editor or in any part of the editing crew, um,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a bit of a hellish experience because
Speaker 1: you're going to be scrambling trying to temp in music
Speaker 1: and temp in special effects like some really hackneyed version
Speaker 1: of special effects, just so they know. Like in the
Speaker 1: scene it's going to be a spaceship, right, the editors like, well,
Speaker 1: just cut to this stock quick quick time footage of
Speaker 1: a spaceship lanning and get the point across. Like sure.
Speaker 1: So they're gonna be scrambling trying to put together as
Speaker 1: much of a finished project as they can. Um. And
Speaker 1: most of the times they will also be at the theater.
Speaker 1: They're gonna cue it up and watch it just to
Speaker 1: make sure it's ready to roll. Yeah, before the audience
Speaker 1: sees it. You're gonna have a moderator. Have you ever
Speaker 1: been to a test screen? No of you? Yeah? Cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's neat what I don't remember. Wow, it must not
Speaker 1: have been very good movie. It was a long time ago. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was it. I love that movie. It wasn't I
Speaker 1: did watch that the other night though, in full That's
Speaker 1: what that was. That was one of the songs that
Speaker 1: I sang at piano karaoke, couple of dollars songs saying
Speaker 1: that you mean I sang I was in the stream?
Speaker 1: Did she did the Kenny Rogers part and you did
Speaker 1: the Dolly part. We switched it up. Nine to five
Speaker 1: is very hard song to sing, by the way, and
Speaker 1: that movie holds up. Man, it's still very funny. The
Speaker 1: great Dabney Coleman, great Lily Common, the great Dolly Parton,
Speaker 1: great Jane Fonda, the great Jane Fonda so good, and
Speaker 1: you know, the three of them, like it was just
Speaker 1: a great shoot. There were best buds and they remained
Speaker 1: friends all these years later. You can tell. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of neat. Uh Alright, So where was I. Oh, Yeah,
Speaker 1: someone's gonna introduce the movie and they're gonna get you
Speaker 1: all excited and like everyone's glad to be here. So
Speaker 1: you know when Wilson's new movie, right, everybody reached under
Speaker 1: your scene for some free red vines. Yeah, you might
Speaker 1: get little free something you never know. Uh, and they're
Speaker 1: going to explain, like what you're about to see is
Speaker 1: gonna be a little rough in parts and the effects
Speaker 1: aren't complete, so just don't take that into account. They're
Speaker 1: they're not looking for like, well, maybe you should color
Speaker 1: correct it a little more before you release it. They're
Speaker 1: aware of that. Um, I think you're supposed to take
Speaker 1: the green screen out of the shot. What they're looking
Speaker 1: for is pacing. They want to know you as like
Speaker 1: an audience members, keeping up with the movie and how
Speaker 1: it's how it is going right, Yeah, you're gonna well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna watch the movie just as cleanly as possible,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna have to fill out comment cards
Speaker 1: and um, they're pretty standard, but they can tailor it
Speaker 1: for the movie. Like, um, it's like, let's say you
Speaker 1: think there's a problem with one of the characters. They
Speaker 1: might specifically say, like, what do you think about the
Speaker 1: Luke Wilson character? Too much? Too little Owen Wilson. Uh,
Speaker 1: they might ask your favorite parts, your least favorite parts? Um,
Speaker 1: how how did it flow to anything stand out to
Speaker 1: you as like could you follow it the whole time? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did it make sense? That's that's a good one. Right,
Speaker 1: What did you think of the jokes? Yeah? What do
Speaker 1: you think of the jokes? They drill down, They try
Speaker 1: and get as specific as they can, and these are
Speaker 1: just the comment cards. Yeah. Supposedly, if you're in the
Speaker 1: demographic that they're shooting for and release and you're at
Speaker 1: this thing, as you're trying to leave, they might come
Speaker 1: up to you and be like, hey, like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is just kind of the slobby like audience. You want
Speaker 1: to be part of a real focus group with us.
Speaker 1: And then you follow the stranger to a second location. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you follow him to a van with a little
Speaker 1: round window in the back, this big covered over with
Speaker 1: a black plastic bag. Uh? That got dark? It did.
Speaker 1: So the big thing they're looking for, though, the money
Speaker 1: question is would you recommend this movie to a friend?
Speaker 1: That's the one thing they want to know, and that
Speaker 1: is where you're gonna get your overall score that they
Speaker 1: really are going to hone in on. Right. They want
Speaker 1: to know that so bad that if they don't say
Speaker 1: I definitely would, they don't even count that. Yeah you
Speaker 1: can say like, oh yeah, maybe probably Nope, So a movie,
Speaker 1: a movie gets a score at the end, and it's
Speaker 1: based apparently exclusively on whether or not you said you
Speaker 1: would definitely recommend the movie to a friend. Yeah, out
Speaker 1: of a hundred people, they will score that so yeah,
Speaker 1: or out of it however many people. But for example,
Speaker 1: out of a hundred, if um, sixty people say that yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I would recommend it to a friend, and
Speaker 1: forty people say that they definitely would, that movie got
Speaker 1: to score forty terrible, not even like like you can't
Speaker 1: even take into account that yeah, probably you have to
Speaker 1: say you definitely would recommend it to a friend to
Speaker 1: get a point for that movie. Yeah, And they said
Speaker 1: in this article, I'm sure there's a huge caveats and
Speaker 1: a sliding scale, but uh and anything over eighty they
Speaker 1: think they're in pretty decent shape. I would guess a
Speaker 1: low the average, they've been a lot less than eighties lately,
Speaker 1: except of course from Matt max x Man that was
Speaker 1: pretty great movie. Good. Um. They asking this article that
Speaker 1: makes you wonder, like when you when a train wreck
Speaker 1: of a movie comes out, like what happened? Did they
Speaker 1: focus screwp it? Did they test screen it? Did they
Speaker 1: ignore it? Like? What? What? How does that thing get released?
Speaker 1: Is the question, are you asking me? Well, I mean no,
Speaker 1: I'm just throwing it out there. I'm not the one
Speaker 1: who's been the one of these tests creating. No. It
Speaker 1: does make you wonder though, like they probably did they
Speaker 1: didn't screen it, or the the people who had um
Speaker 1: edit rights didn't care to listen. But this, this article
Speaker 1: keeps picking on glitter, which seems mean because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stinkers out there. Apparently humans sent three has
Speaker 1: the I think it came out recently. Is this the
Speaker 1: one in prison? I don't know. I think it's the first,
Speaker 1: Like hundreds of people. It has the lowest meta critic
Speaker 1: score of all time. Really, you saw the persone? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Have you seen it? Nod? This definitely we're seeing I
Speaker 1: just think I get it just by seeing the trailer.
Speaker 1: You would No, No, I mean there's no real surprises
Speaker 1: beyond what you've seen in the trailer. But um, it's
Speaker 1: not even appreciating it in an ironic way, even taking
Speaker 1: it on its own terms, you're kind of like it's
Speaker 1: worth seeing at least once, like can't be disturbing or yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but not not like um, not like hostile can't be disturbing?
Speaker 1: Have you seen hostile. Yeah, I didn't think that was
Speaker 1: very campy. There was just straight up disturbing. This one
Speaker 1: already disturbing. The guy was definitely going for an already
Speaker 1: bent despite the premise of the movie. Alright, but yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some disturbing stuff. I'm curious to see if that
Speaker 1: guy has anything left in his bag of tricks, because
Speaker 1: you can only go mouth the butt for so long.
Speaker 1: What's them? What's can't be disturbing? Give me an example
Speaker 1: of that thing? Oh? I think, um, like, uh, like
Speaker 1: a reanimator type of thing. Oh yeah, okay, I see, yeah,
Speaker 1: hostiles not can't be disturbing. Reanimator definitely is. Um. Can
Speaker 1: we talk about Tom Cruise for a minute and how
Speaker 1: obnoxious this move was. Yeah, I guess he really believed
Speaker 1: in the way the editing process was already going. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he crashed his own test screening of Mission Impossible three, allegedly,
Speaker 1: uh and ran in there and I was like, Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'm Tom Cruise, Let's high five each other, enjoy the movie,
Speaker 1: give me a couch to jump on. I mean, can
Speaker 1: you believe that that totally negates the purpose of an
Speaker 1: audience screening because everyone there, I'm sure there were a
Speaker 1: few people are like, oh hatred gut too weirdough, But
Speaker 1: the rest of people like, oh my god, Tom Cruise
Speaker 1: just came into the very test screening like they probably
Speaker 1: didn't feel good about writing negative comments, right, you know,
Speaker 1: he just here. He might want to like hang out
Speaker 1: with me after this, and I want to be able
Speaker 1: to tell him that I gave him high marks. I
Speaker 1: can't believe he did that. I can't believe he did that. Actually,
Speaker 1: yeah I can too. Um So. By the way, also,
Speaker 1: there is a really interesting long form article in l
Speaker 1: a Weekly from about a year ago called how YouTube
Speaker 1: and Internet journalism destroyed Tom Cruise our last real movie star.
Speaker 1: And it's it's not an apologist's view, but it definitely
Speaker 1: defends him against a lot of um it's it's just
Speaker 1: read it. I'm still a fan of his acting in
Speaker 1: most cases, Like that Edge of Tomorrow movie was terrific. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it yet and I've heard nothing but
Speaker 1: good things about it. It was really good. But no,
Speaker 1: I can still watch his movies and separate that from
Speaker 1: the wacko in real life. This is um yes, this
Speaker 1: is defending is acting as well, but it's defending is
Speaker 1: that public perception of him as being a whack go
Speaker 1: and it basically like really kind of pulls apart like
Speaker 1: all the layers and you're like, oh yeah, Like it
Speaker 1: really goes to town stressing that he never jumped up
Speaker 1: and down on the couch, right, He just jumped up
Speaker 1: on the couch exactly, But they go to great links
Speaker 1: to point out that that is not the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's just off handedly saying, oh, yeah, he jumped up
Speaker 1: and down on that couch like he was crazy. Now
Speaker 1: he jumped up on the couch once and then stepped
Speaker 1: down or something like that. So it's a really great article,
Speaker 1: really interesting because he's just been like around for so
Speaker 1: long now that it's really it's almost surprising to see
Speaker 1: somebody step up, not as like a crusader on behalf
Speaker 1: of Time cruise, but just more to be like, everybody
Speaker 1: put your knives away. Well, I think the nives are out,
Speaker 1: not just because like, oh, he's a scientologist and people
Speaker 1: think that's weird. It's like when you dig down into
Speaker 1: scientology and find out the things that he abides by,
Speaker 1: like the slave labor to decorate his cars and to
Speaker 1: wash his truck, and you know that that makes you
Speaker 1: kind of not a good person, you know, I see
Speaker 1: what you mean. Like, that's beyond like, oh, that's just
Speaker 1: a strange religion. That's like people are being paid fifteen
Speaker 1: since an hour to take care of me. Oh, if
Speaker 1: they're being paid, that's not slavery. That's true. That's a
Speaker 1: good point. Um, what was the what's the name of
Speaker 1: the Was it an HBO documentary? Clear? Yeah? Based on
Speaker 1: the book going clear, I saw the guy um who
Speaker 1: wrote the book come speak. Really I don't remember his name,
Speaker 1: but like, I mean, how whatever you think of his
Speaker 1: book for his journalism, that guy had brass ones. Really,
Speaker 1: he's the one who did it. He's the one who
Speaker 1: went after scientology when no one else would touch it.
Speaker 1: He's the guy who did And apparently five million lawyers
Speaker 1: read that book before it was ever published. I think
Speaker 1: HBO supposedly had like a hundred attorneys when they went
Speaker 1: to adapt it as a documentary. And this is after
Speaker 1: it had already been vetted by all of the lawyer
Speaker 1: in the book publishing world. It's good, the great book. Alright,
Speaker 1: let's take another break here, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about some of the more famous examples of
Speaker 1: movies that have been changed due to audience screenings. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be so good, so chuck, there's um. There's some
Speaker 1: legendary changes to movies that have been made over the years.
Speaker 1: Like we mentioned the Wizard of Oz that was not
Speaker 1: a change actually, but like a test audience suggested it
Speaker 1: be taken out somewhere over the rainbow apparently. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: very famously, James Bonds movie License to Kill was originally
Speaker 1: called License Revoked, and even after all the promotion material
Speaker 1: posters have been made, they changed the name because American
Speaker 1: test audiences were like, I don't understand what the title means,
Speaker 1: Like his driver's license was for folks, and they were serious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was weird. I mean it sounds like a like
Speaker 1: a Queen Latifa comedy, you know, like where she's a
Speaker 1: bus school sassy school bus ever and they like the
Speaker 1: K and the R backwards or something like that. And
Speaker 1: the poster yeah, absolutely, Um, she's as pretty woman. The movie,
Speaker 1: the saccharin feel good movie from Richard Dear and Julia
Speaker 1: Roberts apparently not started out. No, this is hysterical to me.
Speaker 1: It was originally titled three thousand based on the amount
Speaker 1: of money it costs to hire a hooker for a week. Sure,
Speaker 1: that would have made no sense. Yeah, apparently they changed
Speaker 1: the name not because of the test sudies, because the
Speaker 1: exacts were like, it sounds too science fiction e and
Speaker 1: they were right. They were right, Pretty woman, it's a
Speaker 1: much better title for that movie. Uh. And then apparently
Speaker 1: it was had a lot darker edge when it was
Speaker 1: in script form, and it ended it with Richard Gear's
Speaker 1: character kicking Julia Robert's character out of his car and
Speaker 1: driving away. That's how it ended. Not very rom comy. No, No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a rom com That was Gary Marshall. But
Speaker 1: see what I want to know is Gary Marshall, he's
Speaker 1: he's a rom comy director. No, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: He made that like what I wanna. It seems to
Speaker 1: me like all that would have changed with Gary Marshall,
Speaker 1: not like in test screening. Yes, I think that's what happened.
Speaker 1: And then that what the test audience, the hand they
Speaker 1: played was that they're like, you need to change that ending. Okay, God,
Speaker 1: they need to get together. Um, Fatal Attraction famously changed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the ending of Fatal Attraction apparently has Glenn cost.
Speaker 1: Glenn Close, who's Michael Douglas, is former one night stand
Speaker 1: turned stalker um killing herself flitting her own throat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty good with a knife with Michael Douglas's fingerprints on it.
Speaker 1: And then Michael Douglas is arrested for her murder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like it's supposed to, they don't show trials and things,
Speaker 1: but ends with him going to prison and that's a
Speaker 1: great ending. Glenn Close loved it. She was very sad
Speaker 1: when audiences were like, Nope, we hate this character so much,
Speaker 1: like she has to be killed off. She can't kill herself.
Speaker 1: Somebody has to kill her and just for good measure
Speaker 1: and make it the wife. Well that makes sense because
Speaker 1: I think people people weren't rooting for Michael Douglas in
Speaker 1: that movie either because he was such a jerk um
Speaker 1: toyed with this woman left her, had this great wife
Speaker 1: at home and kid. So people I think they said,
Speaker 1: you know what would go over the top is if
Speaker 1: the only sympathetic character in this movie, which is Anne Archer,
Speaker 1: is the one who does it right and that was effective.
Speaker 1: I'll give it to him. Yeah, But apparently Glenn Close
Speaker 1: is like the original ending was way better she washed
Speaker 1: her hands of it. Did you ever see Scott Pilgrim
Speaker 1: Versus the World? It's a good flick. Um. The original
Speaker 1: in ing of that one had him had his character
Speaker 1: ending up with his his love interest Um knives Chow
Speaker 1: played by Ellen Wong instead of his dream girl Ramona
Speaker 1: Flowers and Um. The test audiences didn't like that and said, basically,
Speaker 1: this guy spent the whole movie annoyed by this girlfriend
Speaker 1: and pining for this other girl and defeating her evil
Speaker 1: ex boyfriends. He he can just not end up with
Speaker 1: her at the end. It's very anticlimactic. So they said,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll change it. And that's what wasn't the
Speaker 1: graphic novel too, So I don't know why they changed
Speaker 1: it to begin with. They went back to the original
Speaker 1: ending that it was of the material was adapted from.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, pretty and pink. Yeah, this one's pretty
Speaker 1: famous too. Like I had heard this many many years
Speaker 1: ago that originally they had Molly Ringwald ending up with
Speaker 1: John Cryer with Ducky rather than Blaine Andrew McCarthy, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I saw, we can have Bernie's again.
Speaker 1: Recently HiT's uh no, it's not that bad, really, it's
Speaker 1: very thin. Well it's one joke, Um the boy. They
Speaker 1: take it in so many directions. It's pretty funny. And um,
Speaker 1: it's amazing how young Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy look,
Speaker 1: I mean young. Yeah, and the guy who played Bernie,
Speaker 1: who was like, I don't think ever did anything else.
Speaker 1: I never saw him do anything else. He threw out
Speaker 1: the ball at like a Los Angeles Dodgers game or
Speaker 1: San Francisco Giants game. No, no, like last season. Really
Speaker 1: I don't remember the reason why, but it was like
Speaker 1: he's been working out that character for a long time.
Speaker 1: You know, it would have been genius if they would
Speaker 1: have had Silverman and McCarthy out there like grabbing his
Speaker 1: arm and throwing the ball for him as if he
Speaker 1: were dead. It would have been great. That would have
Speaker 1: been prett good. I think they call that meta these days, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do, or meta is already out And I was like,
Speaker 1: so two years ago, you know, twenty eight days later
Speaker 1: he saw that one, right. That one ends with Jim's
Speaker 1: Cillian Murphy's character um dying in the original ending and
Speaker 1: his people who are going to rescue him just like
Speaker 1: going back out to fight the zombies again. Right, They're like, no,
Speaker 1: that stinks. I love this guy. Yeah, so they he
Speaker 1: recovers yeah in the end in like a field or
Speaker 1: a meadow, or they're like romping in the field and
Speaker 1: I think they see a plane. I'm sure. Danny Bow
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, you want a happy ending, give your happy,
Speaker 1: stupid ending, your stupid ending, chiku, stupid audience. I like
Speaker 1: the ending, though I don't. I like both. I don't
Speaker 1: mind a happy ending when it's done well, but also
Speaker 1: like dark endings. Yeah, you know one of the it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be one or the other. What about
Speaker 1: the opposite dark beginnings and un dark beginnings, like with
Speaker 1: the Sunset Boulevard. All right, go ahead and break it down.
Speaker 1: I don't know that one. Oh have you ever seen
Speaker 1: Sunset Boulevard. No, that's on my list as a classic
Speaker 1: movie for a reason. It's a truly great movie. But
Speaker 1: apparently at the beginning of it, originally they had Bill
Speaker 1: Holden's Corpse, the character he plays Corpse, talking to other
Speaker 1: corpses in the morgue explaining how he got there, and
Speaker 1: audiences were like, is this a comedy? Like? What what
Speaker 1: is going on here? Apparently, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: walked out and Billy Wilder, the director, was there, and
Speaker 1: some lady told him to his face that it was
Speaker 1: a steaming pile and maybe didn't know it was him
Speaker 1: or something like that. But the the uh, the the
Speaker 1: legend goes that she told them to his face like
Speaker 1: this is terrible, and he reshot the beginning to where
Speaker 1: it's Bill Holden's corpse but it's a voiceover and it's
Speaker 1: he's not talking to other corpses in the morgue. But
Speaker 1: it's not a comedy, right, not at all. Maybe because
Speaker 1: it was Billy Wilder, people had an expectation. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean there's some parts that you wonder like, did
Speaker 1: he mean that to be like kind of funny, like
Speaker 1: in a really dark way. Maybe, Yeah, it's quite possible,
Speaker 1: but I need to see that. You should watch it
Speaker 1: like tonight. It doesn't matter the mood, Darine, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what you gut going on. Just you could watch
Speaker 1: Sunset Boulevard and be like, this is a great movie. Um, Heathers,
Speaker 1: did you see Heathers? Um? The regular ending? Well, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: the yeah. The the ending they went with was Christian
Speaker 1: Slater's character, Um wants to blow up the school gymnasium
Speaker 1: during a basketball game and Veronica, uh, what's her face?
Speaker 1: Is one on a writer's character shoots him dead, stops
Speaker 1: it and ends up bonding with the the outcast girl. Yes. Um,
Speaker 1: in the original ending and the script, I don't think
Speaker 1: this was an I don't think it was shot, but um,
Speaker 1: she kills Christian Slater's character, straps the bomb to herself
Speaker 1: and blows up the school and everyone has prom in
Speaker 1: heaven and like everybody gets along. The nerds and the
Speaker 1: geeks are all like living in harmony. Yeah, not bad,
Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, I could see that. Blade Runner perhaps
Speaker 1: the most famous changed ending of all time. I have
Speaker 1: not heard that. Yes, you know, the original ending of
Speaker 1: Blade Runner was very dark, and that's the one that
Speaker 1: ended up in the director's cut. Ridley Scott's director's cut
Speaker 1: was basically that that Harrison Ford is going to die,
Speaker 1: and well that Rachel Ward is going to die because
Speaker 1: replicants have expiration dates, and is Harrison Ford a replicant
Speaker 1: or not? And it leaves it open. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: the director's cut leaves it ambiguous, even though I think
Speaker 1: Redley Scott came out years later and said, yeah, he
Speaker 1: is a replicate. So in the in the audience tested version,
Speaker 1: he turns to the camera and says directly the audience, Nope,
Speaker 1: not a replicant. Not quite. But they all that terrible
Speaker 1: voiceover narration was added, you know, in the non director's cut,
Speaker 1: and they had the happy ending with um infamous blue
Speaker 1: sky shot the Only Blue Sky, and the whole movie
Speaker 1: was then like driving down the road at the end
Speaker 1: and explaining via voiceover that well, not all replicants have
Speaker 1: an expiration date. You're special, so you don't have one,
Speaker 1: so we can just live together in harmony, and that
Speaker 1: Philip k roll over in his grave probably so. But
Speaker 1: that shot of the Only Blue Sky wasn't even from
Speaker 1: that movie. It was pulled from out takes of the shining,
Speaker 1: the beginning car scene and the shining when they're driving
Speaker 1: up the road. So yeah, blade Runner really screwed that
Speaker 1: one up, and really Scott, of course, was he was
Speaker 1: not so happy about that. I can imagine master piece.
Speaker 1: And then somebody tacks on out takes from the movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'd be bad. Uh, you got anything else? Nope, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't either. We could probably do this for a
Speaker 1: while though, because there's plenty of other movies that were
Speaker 1: changed thanks to audiences. But if you're ever in a
Speaker 1: line at a movie theater and somebody trustworthy seeing Seeming
Speaker 1: comes up to you and I see if you want
Speaker 1: to be in a test audience, give it a shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the big thanks to Mental Philoss for all. A
Speaker 1: lot of that list stuff came from one of their articles.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right. Um, yeah, that's all I got. And
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about audience testing, type
Speaker 1: those words in the search part how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And since I said that it's time for a listener mail,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this Oceans are cool if I pay attention. Um, Hey,
Speaker 1: guys love the show. I used to listen every day
Speaker 1: when I rode the trains from Brooklyn into Manhattan to work,
Speaker 1: but recently I started to work in Brooklyn close enough
Speaker 1: for me to bike too, so I don't write trains anymore.
Speaker 1: They're pros and cons for that. On one hand, I
Speaker 1: save over a hundred and ten dollars a month in
Speaker 1: metro card fees don't have to wait for trains, which
Speaker 1: adds another twenty minutes to the Google Map travel times.
Speaker 1: On the downside, when it rains, it stuff to bike
Speaker 1: to work, although I am learning to love that. And
Speaker 1: the other con is that I don't have time to
Speaker 1: listen to you guys as much, since it's very detailed
Speaker 1: and paying attention is key if I want to enjoy
Speaker 1: the show and I need to keep my thoughts on
Speaker 1: the road. My commute is also uh down to fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: which doesn't help much either. I need to reconcile this fellas.
Speaker 1: This morning, I tried to listen to the Oceans episode
Speaker 1: while doing some work on my computer. Wasn't long before
Speaker 1: I knew I had missed something critical. At some point,
Speaker 1: rip tides were defined and laddered up to equatorial winds,
Speaker 1: a connection I recalled from taking oceanography in high school.
Speaker 1: But I did not understand when I wasn't paying attention
Speaker 1: this morning. When I used to listen on the train,
Speaker 1: the show had my undivided attention. Now I'm trying to
Speaker 1: find a new time to listen. Maybe I'll save up
Speaker 1: shows and binge them on a nice long bike ride.
Speaker 1: And that is from Andrew uh Negross in I g
Speaker 1: R S H die Gross Negross something like that. Interesting.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that name. Well, thanks a lot Andrew.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you getting in touch with us. We hope
Speaker 1: you figure this out. This sounds like a terrible conundrum.
Speaker 1: Maybe get a new job that requires you further away. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: go work in the Vermont. Yeah. There you go, a
Speaker 1: problem solved. If you have a problem that you want
Speaker 1: Chuck and Eye to solve for you, like we just
Speaker 1: did for Andrew, you can tweet to us at s
Speaker 1: Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
Speaker 1: us an email the Stuff podcast at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com and has always joined us at our home
Speaker 1: on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, is it
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com.