Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Happy Saturday. Charles W. Chuck Bryant here with
Speaker 1: a pick from our past from June thirtieth, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: How audience testing works. Ooh, I shudder when I say that,
Speaker 1: because we had a TV show for one season and
Speaker 1: was it audience tested? I don't even remember. To be honest,
Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't have scored very well, or maybe it
Speaker 1: would have who knows. At any rate, this is how
Speaker 1: audience testing works for movies, TV shows, all kinds of
Speaker 1: things like that. Please enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
Speaker 2: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
Speaker 2: Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there. So let's just call
Speaker 2: this Stuff you Should Be, shall we.
Speaker 1: Hey, that's a good name for a show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. I came up with that.
Speaker 1: You did You're the Inventor, and from that was hatched
Speaker 1: all of the stuff podcasts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean how stuff works? Stuff?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I don't know. I think you're you're selling
Speaker 1: yourself short.
Speaker 2: It's okay.
Speaker 1: So this is another one of our movie centric podcasts
Speaker 1: that people seem to love. We've done all kinds of things,
Speaker 1: from exploitation films to movies that change filmmaking, to how
Speaker 1: films are rated, THEA N PAA.
Speaker 2: How TV ratings work. Yeah, ten exploitation films, Yeah, that
Speaker 2: was a good one, and some movies that changed filmmaking.
Speaker 2: That's right, all the stuff you just said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, before we get going here, buddy, we need a
Speaker 1: blanket spoiler because we're going to be talking about movies
Speaker 1: that had their endings changed. And so this is your
Speaker 1: fair warning. Most of them are old movies. Most of
Speaker 1: this information is out there, of course, yes, but if
Speaker 1: you're one of those people who gets really upset by
Speaker 1: this kind of thing, you may want to 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, right.
Speaker 2: It can also be like a terrible the worst thing
Speaker 2: that's ever happened to you. Yep, And apparently even if
Speaker 2: you believe in the system, it's a terrible experience, says
Speaker 2: Ron Howard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's he's a fame, well not famous for but
Speaker 1: he is on record along with his producing partner Brian
Speaker 1: Graser for who.
Speaker 2: By the way, do you know this about Brian Grazer
Speaker 2: best hair and show business? Well, clearly, yeah. But he
Speaker 2: has the habit of taking frame pictures of himself over
Speaker 2: to people's houses and when they're not looking like, plants
Speaker 2: them among their family photos. That's pretty awesome, pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That reminds me. I know, you hate George Cliney's guts,
Speaker 1: but there's you said that there's a famous 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: just kept that going and going, and then like gave
Speaker 1: some of his close friends He's awful, awful paintings, right,
Speaker 1: and you know you're kind of expected to hang it up.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, thanks George.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's a pretty good one. This is great. Oh
Speaker 2: but he 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 as 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: be either like confused or upset an audience.
Speaker 2: As a whole.
Speaker 1: But he also said it's terrible to go through, like
Speaker 1: even when it's a good experience, is never a good experience.
Speaker 2: And that's somebody who believes in the system. So if
Speaker 2: you don't believe in the system and you still have
Speaker 2: to go through it, like Robert Altman did, He's.
Speaker 1: Not a test audience kind of guy.
Speaker 2: No, can you imagine putting him through that? No, that's
Speaker 2: like letting all of the town's ladies bring Boo Radley
Speaker 2: that the pies for killing Bob Yule. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you can't put Robert Altman through the audience testing system.
Speaker 2: Who did they? Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't know, a dummy because uh yeah, he was
Speaker 1: a Maverick filmmaker. My brother and my Emily worked on
Speaker 1: movies with him. It's pretty neat legend. I know it's
Speaker 1: good stuff. I wish I could tell a couple of
Speaker 1: the stories.
Speaker 2: But but I mean, did you expect to get rich
Speaker 2: off of a Robert Altman movie?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Apparently these people did.
Speaker 1: I wonder what his top grossing movie ever was, probably
Speaker 1: The Player or Mash I'll bet it was Mash Yeah,
Speaker 1: movies didn't gross so much back then. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: just it's a perennial classic. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: The Player was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he's he's made a lot of great
Speaker 1: movies and some kind of stinkers as well.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but a.
Speaker 1: Lot of classics like Ashville. Have you ever seen Nashville?
Speaker 2: No? I never saw in Nashville.
Speaker 1: Man so good.
Speaker 2: So the Player cuts. Yeah, didn't see the Uh, the
Speaker 2: Lake Wobegone one with Lindsay Lohan for some reason. What Yeah,
Speaker 2: they did a Prairie Home companion. Yeah, with Lindsay Lohan.
Speaker 1: That's just weird.
Speaker 2: And Meryl Street.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: It was like not a good id to getting casting
Speaker 2: director super drunk. Yeah, they just have a point out
Speaker 2: photos headshots and then that's how we'll cast this.
Speaker 1: Uh. And then mckayb and miss Miller. That's a classic
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Never even heard of it. War and Batty liked Mash though.
Speaker 2: That was a good one.
Speaker 1: It was so Ron Howard calls the process brutal and hideous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he said, even if it's going well, it's not fun. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Francis Ford Coppola is somewhat responsible, although they have tested
Speaker 1: movies all the way back in the thirties. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: audience has said, you know that Somewhere over the Rainbow
Speaker 1: song really slows things down.
Speaker 2: It's a stinker. Get it out of there.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness they didn't listen, because that became one of
Speaker 1: the most iconic singing performances ever in a movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and apparently pointing that out is a really good
Speaker 2: way to talk to somebody out of cutting something at
Speaker 2: a test audience. Yeah, think about Somewhere over the Rainbow. Chief.
Speaker 1: So, when Coppola was making Apocalypse Now, he had focus
Speaker 1: groups and really, yeah, I would not have guessed that
Speaker 1: well that movie. You've seen The Hearts of.
Speaker 2: Darkness, right, know, the documentary about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, it's really good that he had a lot
Speaker 1: of studio heat coming down on him.
Speaker 2: You know you've got a great movie when the documentary
Speaker 2: about your great movie is a great movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. It's really good. I think
Speaker 1: it's wife made.
Speaker 2: That, although that's not necessarily true. The best worst movie
Speaker 2: was a great documentary, and Trolls two was not a
Speaker 2: good movie in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of best worst movie.
Speaker 2: It's about have you ever heard of Trolls too?
Speaker 1: I've heard of trolls, so I guess I've heard of trolls.
Speaker 2: Too, apparently by totally different filmmakers, completely unconnected story wise
Speaker 2: and everything. This is just trolls too, gotcha? And this
Speaker 2: documentary caught up with the people from Trolls Too, because
Speaker 2: it became like kind of this cool hipster thing to like,
Speaker 2: look at how terrible this movie is, like the Room Sure,
Speaker 2: And this documentary kind of followed this movement and went
Speaker 2: and found the people who were in this movie who
Speaker 2: had no idea this was going on, and then like
Speaker 2: basically puts them on the road going around promoting showings
Speaker 2: of Trolls Too and just living it up.
Speaker 1: That was great documentary. The documentary is good. The movie
Speaker 1: wasn't good, right, Okay, so I ate my own words understood,
Speaker 1: No you didn't.
Speaker 2: But I think one of your pals from UCB is
Speaker 2: in it Controls Too, in the Best Worst Movie the documentary.
Speaker 1: You know one of the founders. No, not Matt Besser.
Speaker 2: Yes it might be Matt Besser. Maybe I don't. No,
Speaker 2: one of the guys from you. There's like a bunch
Speaker 2: of UCB people in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but okay, I got you. Besser was one of
Speaker 1: the founding members though, with Amy Poehler and Ian Roberts
Speaker 1: and Matt Walsh.
Speaker 2: This maybe Matt Walsh is the one that was in
Speaker 2: old school, right, Yeah, so this is the other Matt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he might be in it. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: a good guy. He listens to our show.
Speaker 2: Prove me wrong, Matt, prove me wrong.
Speaker 1: Oh, Razorbacks, that's for him.
Speaker 2: He's an Arkansas fan. Or he just really likes Razorbacks. No,
Speaker 2: he's a Arkansas guy, gotcha.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just a fan of the big Oh.
Speaker 2: We had an ad break yet.
Speaker 1: Not yet, not until I finished the story about Copola.
Speaker 1: He when he was making Apocalypse Now, hired a man
Speaker 1: named Joe Farrell or Farrell to help with marketing. And
Speaker 1: Farrell said, you know what, I see a pretty big
Speaker 1: opportunity here, and so he partnered up with Katherine Catherine
Speaker 1: Para and formed the National Research Group. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't think they're still exclusive, but at the time
Speaker 1: signed all the studios to an exclusive contract to do
Speaker 1: their audience testing. And I think they're still the top
Speaker 1: dog in audience testing. Even though I think there are
Speaker 1: other companies that do it.
Speaker 2: Now, this is the company with the extraordinarily secretive name NRG,
Speaker 2: the National Research Group. Yeah, and they also do like
Speaker 2: contract hits I think for the CIA and the NSA.
Speaker 1: No, but they don't have a website that I could find,
Speaker 1: like I was trying to just get a little information
Speaker 1: about the company.
Speaker 2: But so they're a division of Nielsen.
Speaker 1: Well, which of course they're super secretive. We already tell
Speaker 1: they are.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so it's crazy like this.
Speaker 1: It's like a cabal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know very much. So Randy Quaid was right.
Speaker 1: You might be. And they don't just do audience testing.
Speaker 1: They also, back when people had telephones, would do a
Speaker 1: lot of just random calling and saying like market research,
Speaker 1: like did you know this movie was coming out?
Speaker 2: It's called awareness, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Awareness campaigns and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And then they'd split you into four quadrants, right, which
Speaker 2: is the four quadrants that everyone on the planet is
Speaker 2: divided into, men under twenty five, men over twenty five,
Speaker 2: women under twenty five, and women over twenty five. That's right,
Speaker 2: that's it. There's the division of importance. At age twenty five,
Speaker 2: you cross over and get put out to pasture basically.
Speaker 1: All right, so that's the longest setup in history.
Speaker 2: So wait a minute, I want to make sure I
Speaker 2: understand what you're saying, because I made a lot of
Speaker 2: jokes in the middle of all this.
Speaker 1: They were flying.
Speaker 2: But you're saying that NRG, the National Research Group, came
Speaker 2: out of focus groups done for apocalypse.
Speaker 1: Now, yes, that's the way I understand it. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did not know that. Yeah, but they were already
Speaker 1: doing focus groups, but this company really ran with it,
Speaker 1: I think, in the corner of the industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotcha.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's take that promised break and we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about audience testing right after this. All right,
Speaker 1: back with audience testing. There's many different reasons to test
Speaker 1: your movie. Yeah, sometimes if it's a comedy, they will
Speaker 1: literally do multiple screenings just to test little bits and
Speaker 1: little jokes.
Speaker 2: If that makes sense to me. Yeah, if you're testing
Speaker 2: a comedy, totally makes sense. Because a couple of comedy
Speaker 2: writers that you put into like a room and say,
Speaker 2: write this hilarious movie or take this dog of a
Speaker 2: movie and punch it up with some jokes.
Speaker 1: It's very subjective.
Speaker 2: It might sound funny to you, sure, but then you're
Speaker 2: a movie executive and you had like a three scotch launch,
Speaker 2: so everything seems kind of funny right now, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Yeah, nineteen sixties, right, so I get
Speaker 2: I get that, and then like this joke landed, this
Speaker 2: joke didn't, This joke was too far, and it like
Speaker 2: went against like what the what the character we've developed
Speaker 2: so far? That and then that to me makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like I see audience testing to that end.
Speaker 1: For sure, you see the value.
Speaker 2: But if it's like should this explosion be seventy percent
Speaker 2: more explosive, well, or should this guy's brain splatter like
Speaker 2: more or less? Well?
Speaker 1: With the violence, you have a point they that is
Speaker 1: something they will also test for it like, are you
Speaker 1: turned off by the amount of violence? Could we dial
Speaker 1: it back a little bit?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What was the movie that was given an example
Speaker 2: in this article of of something that was found to
Speaker 2: be too violent?
Speaker 1: Goodfellas?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that was in a Mental Floss article, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Goodfellas? Uh, the audience like he had and
Speaker 1: that was the first movie Scorsese had ever tested.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah that's another guy I don't see like
Speaker 2: testing stuff. I'm really surprised about Apocalypse now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, like I said, it was studio heat, yeah, gotcha, Yes, Scorsese.
Speaker 1: I think like forty or fifty people walked out in
Speaker 1: the first ten minutes because of the violence. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they said that they didn't like that third act where
Speaker 1: you know, just they thought it was too intense, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And apparently very drawn out, way more drawn out than
Speaker 2: it even is now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they thought the ending of Goodfellows is too intense.
Speaker 2: Right, and again very drawn out. So he went to
Speaker 2: a quick cut montage thing. Yeah, which actually ended up
Speaker 2: making it better because Henry Hill is like coke to
Speaker 2: the gills at this point. Sure, and like that whole
Speaker 2: thing where like he's looking driving watching the helicopter that's
Speaker 2: following him. Yeah, and it's like chop, chop chop. It
Speaker 2: really gets the point across.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very effective.
Speaker 2: So it worked in that case, I think, yes, right,
Speaker 2: the system works.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know about that. It worked in that case.
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, yeah, you've
Speaker 1: probably been approached or seeing the people with clipboards. Don't
Speaker 1: run away because they are not trying to sell you something.
Speaker 1: They're trying to give you something, which is a free screening.
Speaker 2: That's true, and.
Speaker 1: They'll come and sign you up there. I ask if
Speaker 1: you're interested. Hey, we got a new uh Owen Wilson
Speaker 1: movie that we're screening in Burbank next Friday night.
Speaker 2: And everybody starts murmuring, oh oh, I love them. He's
Speaker 2: a national treasure. And everybody starts signing up.
Speaker 1: What's with the nose?
Speaker 2: He got it broken when he was younger.
Speaker 1: It looks like more than once. I like that he
Speaker 1: didn't fix it though.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: He said. He always expected to do something like go
Speaker 2: into advertising or whatever. But if you're a buddy of
Speaker 2: Wes Anderson's from a young age, yeah you're going into movies. Sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of him and his nose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna get approached, Like I said, Uh, probably
Speaker 1: in LA but they do test all over the country
Speaker 1: because we've talked about will it play in Peoria? Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes they want to go to Ohio and see what
Speaker 1: you know, someone outside of the LA area feels about
Speaker 1: the movie.
Speaker 2: Right. But the reason that your chances are vastly higher
Speaker 2: of being asked to be in a test audience for
Speaker 2: a movie in Los Angeles is because a lot of
Speaker 2: times the people working on the movie who live in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles have to attend these things. Yeah, because not
Speaker 2: only do they want to, they want to get the
Speaker 2: feedback from it, which we'll find out about that. They
Speaker 2: also want to experience it firsthand, sure, so they get
Speaker 2: a real feel for how the audience is responding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you're eighteen to thirty four, you're more
Speaker 1: likely to get approached, because that's the sweet spot of
Speaker 1: course that you talked about.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you're older than that, then forget it.
Speaker 2: No one cares about you.
Speaker 1: No one cares about you.
Speaker 2: Just give up all of your dreams and work and yep,
Speaker 2: smoke a pipe, be quiet.
Speaker 1: That's right. If you are an assistant editor or in
Speaker 1: any part of the editing crew, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a bit of a hellish experience because you're going to
Speaker 1: be scrambling trying to temp in music and temp in
Speaker 1: and special effects like some really hackneyed version of special
Speaker 1: effects just so they know, like in the scene it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a spaceship.
Speaker 2: Right, And then the editor's like, well, I can just
Speaker 2: cut to this stock quick quick time footage of a
Speaker 2: spaceship landing 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 product as they can, and most
Speaker 1: 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?
Speaker 2: No of you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Cool?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's neat what I don't remember?
Speaker 2: Wow, it must not have been very good movie.
Speaker 1: That was a long time ago. Yeah, that was it.
Speaker 2: I love that movie.
Speaker 1: It wasn't. I did watch that the other night, though,
Speaker 1: in full.
Speaker 2: That's that was it. That was one of the songs
Speaker 2: that I sang at piano karaoke a couple of dollars
Speaker 2: saying that you mean and I sang Islands in the Stream.
Speaker 1: Oh well that she did the Kenney Rogers part and
Speaker 1: you did the Dolly part.
Speaker 2: We switched it up a little. Yeah, very hard song
Speaker 2: to sing, by the way.
Speaker 1: And that movie holds up. Man, it's still very funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the great Dabney Coleman.
Speaker 2: Great Lily Tomlin, the great Dolly Parton, the great Jane Fonda,
Speaker 2: the great Jane Fonda.
Speaker 1: So good, and you know, the three of them, like
Speaker 1: it was just a great shoot and there were best
Speaker 1: buds and they remain friends all these years later.
Speaker 2: You can tell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of neat. Uh, all right, so where
Speaker 1: was I? Oh? Yeah, someone's gonna introduce the movie and
Speaker 1: they're gonna get you all excited and like everyone's glad
Speaker 1: to be here. So you know when Wilson's new movie.
Speaker 2: Right, everybody reach under your seat for some free red vines.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you might get a little free something you
Speaker 1: never know. And they're going to explain, like what you're
Speaker 1: about to see is gonna be a little rough in parts,
Speaker 1: and the effects aren't complete, so just don't take that
Speaker 1: into account.
Speaker 2: Right, They're not looking for like, whoa, maybe you should
Speaker 2: color correct it a little more before you release it.
Speaker 2: They're aware of that.
Speaker 1: I think you're supposed to take the green screen out
Speaker 1: of the shot.
Speaker 2: Right. What they're looking for is pacing. They want to
Speaker 2: know you as like an audience members keeping up with
Speaker 2: the movie and how it's how it is going, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're gonna well, you're gonna watch the movie just
Speaker 1: as cleanly as possible, and then you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: fill out comment cards. And they're pretty standard, but they
Speaker 1: can tailor it for the movie. Like if, like, let's
Speaker 1: say you think there's a problem with one of the characters,
Speaker 1: they might specifically say, like, what do you think about
Speaker 1: the Luke Wilson character?
Speaker 2: Too much?
Speaker 1: Too little?
Speaker 2: He's no Owen Wilson.
Speaker 1: They might ask your favorite parts, your least favorite parts? Yeah,
Speaker 1: how did it flow? Did anything stand out to you?
Speaker 2: Is like, like could you follow it the whole time? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did it make sense? That's a good one, right. What
Speaker 1: did you think of the jokes? Yeah? What do you
Speaker 1: think of the jokes? They drill down, They try and
Speaker 1: get as specific as they can, and these are just
Speaker 1: the comment cards. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Supposedly, if you're in the demographic that they're shooting for
Speaker 2: in release and you're at this thing as you're trying
Speaker 2: to leave, they might come up to you and be like, hey,
Speaker 2: like yeah, this is just kind of the schlubby like audience.
Speaker 2: You want to be part of a real focus group,
Speaker 2: come with us, and then you follow the stranger to
Speaker 2: a second location.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you follow him to a van with a
Speaker 1: little round window in the back that's.
Speaker 2: Been covered over with a black plastic bag.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it got dark, it did. So the big thing
Speaker 1: they're looking for, though, the money question, is would you
Speaker 1: recommend this movie to a friend. That's the one thing
Speaker 1: they want to know, and that is where you're going
Speaker 1: to get your overall score that they really are going
Speaker 1: to hone in on.
Speaker 2: Right, and they want to know that so bad that
Speaker 2: if they don't say I definitely would, Yeah, they don't
Speaker 2: even count that.
Speaker 1: Yeah you can say like yeah, yeah, maybe probably Nope.
Speaker 2: So a movie. A movie gets a score at the end,
Speaker 2: and it's based apparently exclusively on whether or not you
Speaker 2: said you would definitely recommend the movie to a friend. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Out of one hundred people, they will score that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we're out of however many people. But for example,
Speaker 2: out of one hundred, yeah, if sixty people say that, yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess I would recommend it to a friend, and
Speaker 2: forty people say that they definitely would, that movie got
Speaker 2: to score forty terrible, not even like a like you
Speaker 2: can't even take into account that Yeah, probably, Yeah, you
Speaker 2: have to say you definitely would recommend it to a
Speaker 2: friend to get a point for that movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they said in this article, I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: a huge caveats and a sliding scale, but uh and
Speaker 1: anything over eighty they think they're in pretty decent shape.
Speaker 1: I would guess eighty percent a low B average.
Speaker 2: They've really says a lot, a lot less than eighties lately,
Speaker 2: except of course for Mad Max. They makes an X
Speaker 2: Machina that was a pretty great movie too, so.
Speaker 1: Good they ask in this article, though, it makes you wonder,
Speaker 1: like when you when a train wreck of a movie
Speaker 1: comes out, like what happened? Did they focus group it?
Speaker 1: Did they test screen it? Did they ignore it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like what what? How does that thing get released? Is
Speaker 1: the question?
Speaker 2: Or are you asking me? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean no, I'm just throwing it out there.
Speaker 1: I'm not the one who's been to one of these
Speaker 1: tests creating. No, it does make you wonder though, like
Speaker 1: it probably didn't salvageable.
Speaker 2: They didn't screen it, or the the people who had
Speaker 2: edit rights didn't care to listen. But this this article
Speaker 2: keeps picking on glitter, which seems mean because there's a
Speaker 2: lot of stinkers out there. Apparently Human Centipede three has
Speaker 2: the I think it came out recently.
Speaker 1: Is this the one in prison?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's the first, like hundreds of people centipedes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has the lowest Metacritics score of all time.
Speaker 1: Really, you saw the first one?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Have you seen it? No, dude, it's definitely worth seeing.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah, I just think I get it just by
Speaker 1: seeing the trailer.
Speaker 2: You would. No, No, I mean there's no real support
Speaker 2: beyond what you've seen in the trailer. But it's not
Speaker 2: even appreciating it in an ironic way. Even taking it
Speaker 2: on its own terms, you're kind of like it's worth
Speaker 2: seeing at least once.
Speaker 1: Like can't be disturbing or yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, but not like not like hostile can't be disturbing.
Speaker 2: Have you seen Hostile?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I didn't think that was very campy.
Speaker 2: It was just straight up disturbing. This one already disturbing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the guy was definitely going for an already bent despite
Speaker 2: the premise of the movie. All right, but yeah, there's
Speaker 2: some disturbing stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see if that guy has anything left
Speaker 1: in his bag of tricks because you can only go
Speaker 1: mouth the butt for so long.
Speaker 2: What's what's can't be disturbing? Give me an example of
Speaker 2: that thing.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think like like a reanimator type of thing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, I see, Yeah, hostile's not can't be disturbing.
Speaker 2: That definitely. Yes.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about Tom Cruise for a minute and
Speaker 1: how obnoxious this move was?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess he really believed in the way the
Speaker 2: editing process was already going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he crashed his own test screening of Mission Impossible three, allegedly,
Speaker 1: uh and ran in there and looked like, Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'm Tom Cruise. Let's high five each other, enjoy.
Speaker 2: The movie, give me a couch to jump on.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you believe that that totally negates the
Speaker 1: purpose of an audience screening because everyone there. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there were a few people who are like, oh I
Speaker 1: hatred got too weirdo. But the rest of people are like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Tom Cruise just came into the very
Speaker 1: test screening. Yeah, like they probably didn't feel good about
Speaker 1: writing negative comments, right, you know why.
Speaker 2: Here he might want to hang out with me after this,
Speaker 2: and I want to be able to tell him that
Speaker 2: I gave him a high marks.
Speaker 1: I can't believe he did that. I can't believe he
Speaker 1: did that.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah I can too. So by the way, Also,
Speaker 2: there was a really interesting long form our in La
Speaker 2: Weekly from about a year ago called how YouTube and
Speaker 2: internet journalism destroyed Tom Cruise our last real movie star.
Speaker 2: And it's it's not an apologist's view, but it definitely
Speaker 2: defends him against a lot of it's just read it.
Speaker 1: I'm still a fan of his acting in most cases,
Speaker 1: Like that Edge of Tomorrow movie was terrific. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it yet and I've heard nothing but good
Speaker 1: things about it. Yeah, it was really good. But I
Speaker 1: know I can still watch his movies and separate that
Speaker 1: from the wacko in real life.
Speaker 2: This is, yes, this is defending his acting as well,
Speaker 2: but it's defending is that public perception of him as
Speaker 2: being a wacko.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it.
Speaker 2: Basically like really kind of pulls apart like all the
Speaker 2: layers and you're like, oh yeah, Like it really goes
Speaker 2: to town stressing that he never jumped up and down on.
Speaker 1: The couch, right, He just jumped up on the couch.
Speaker 2: Exactly, But they go to great lengths to point out
Speaker 2: that that is not the same thing as just offhandedly saying, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: he jumped up and down on that couch like he
Speaker 2: was crazy. Yeah. No, he jumped up on the couch
Speaker 2: once and then stepped down or something like that. So
Speaker 2: it's a really great article, really interesting because he's just
Speaker 2: been like killed around for so long now, it's really
Speaker 2: it's almost surprising to see somebody step up, not as
Speaker 2: like a crusader on behalf of time cruise, but just
Speaker 2: more to be like, everybody put your knives away.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the knives are out, not just because like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's a scientologist and people think that's weird. It's like
Speaker 1: when you dig down into scientology and find out the
Speaker 1: things that he abides by, like the slave labor to
Speaker 1: decorate his cars and to wash his truck, and you know,
Speaker 1: that makes you kind of not a good person, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see what you mean.
Speaker 1: Like that's beyond like, oh, that's just a strange religion.
Speaker 1: That's like people are being paid fifteen cents an hour
Speaker 1: to take care of me.
Speaker 2: Oh, if they're being paid, that's not slavery, that's true.
Speaker 1: It's a good point.
Speaker 2: What was the what's the name of the was it
Speaker 2: an HBO documentary.
Speaker 1: Going Clear, Going Clear. Yeah, based on the book Going Clear.
Speaker 2: I saw the guy who wrote the book come speak.
Speaker 1: Oh really, that guy likes something that.
Speaker 2: I don't remember his name, but like, I mean, how
Speaker 2: whatever you think of his book, his journalism. That guy
Speaker 2: had brass ones. Oh really, he's the one who did it.
Speaker 2: He's the one who went after scientology when no one
Speaker 2: else would touch it. Yeah, he's the guy who did
Speaker 2: And apparently five million lawyers read that book before it
Speaker 2: was ever published.
Speaker 1: I think HBO supposedly had like one hundred attorneys when
Speaker 1: they went to adapt it as a documentary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is after it had already been vetted
Speaker 2: by all of the lawyers in the book publishing world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good. Yeah, the great book. All right, let's
Speaker 1: take another break here, and when we come back, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about some of the more famous examples of movies
Speaker 1: that have been changed due to audience screenings.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be so good, so Chuck, there's there's some
Speaker 2: legendary changes to movies that have been made over the years.
Speaker 2: Like we mentioned, uh, the Wizard of Oz that was
Speaker 2: not a change actually, but like a test audience suggested
Speaker 2: it be taken out Somewhere over the Rainbow. Apparently. Also
Speaker 2: very famously, James Bond's movie Licensed to Kill was originally
Speaker 2: called License Revoked, and even after all the promotion material
Speaker 2: posters have been made, they changed the name because American
Speaker 2: test audiences were like, I don't understand what the title means,
Speaker 2: like his driver's license was revoked, and they were serious weird.
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds like a like a Queen Tifa comedy,
Speaker 1: like you know, like where she's a bus school sassy
Speaker 1: school bus driver.
Speaker 2: And the like the K and the R backwards or
Speaker 2: something like that, and the poster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, she's a sassy bus pretty woman. The movie,
Speaker 1: the Sacarine feel good movie from Richard Gear and Julia Roberts.
Speaker 2: Apparently not started out as Sacraine.
Speaker 1: No, this is hysterical to me. It was originally titled
Speaker 1: three thousand, based on the amount of money it costs
Speaker 1: to hire a hooker for a week. Sure that would
Speaker 1: like made no sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Apparently they changed the name not because of the
Speaker 2: test says, because the execs were like, sounds too science
Speaker 2: fiction y, and they were right.
Speaker 1: They were right, pretty woman, it's a much better title
Speaker 1: for that for that movie. Uh. And then apparently it
Speaker 1: had a lot darker edge when it was in script form,
Speaker 1: and it ended with Richard Gear's character kicking Julia Roberts
Speaker 1: character out of his car and driving away. That's how
Speaker 1: it ended. Not very rom COMMI.
Speaker 2: No, No, well it wasn't a rom com.
Speaker 1: No, it was Gary Marshall. But see what I want
Speaker 1: to know is.
Speaker 2: Gary Marshall, he's a rom COMMI director.
Speaker 1: No, that's what I'm saying. He made that, like what
Speaker 1: I want to It seems to me like all that
Speaker 1: would have changed with Gary Marshall, not like in test screenings.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's what happened. And then what the
Speaker 2: test audience, the hand they played was that they're like,
Speaker 2: you need to change that ending. Okay, gotch they need
Speaker 2: to get together.
Speaker 1: Right, Fatal Attraction famously changed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the ending of Fatal Attraction apparently has Glenn
Speaker 2: Cose Glenn Close, who's Michael Douglas's former one night stand
Speaker 2: turned stalker, killing herself slitting her own throat. Yeah, pretty
Speaker 2: good with a knife with Michael Douglas's fingerprints on it.
Speaker 2: And then Michael Douglas is arrested for her murder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like it's supposed to They don't show trials
Speaker 1: and things, but it ends with him going to prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's great ending. Glenn Close loved it. She
Speaker 2: was very sad when audiences were like, Nope, we hate
Speaker 2: this character so much, like she has to be killed off.
Speaker 2: She can't kill herself. Somebody has to kill her. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and just for good measure make it the wife.
Speaker 1: Well, that makes sense because I think people people weren't
Speaker 1: rooting for Michael Douglas in that movie either because he
Speaker 1: was such a jerk right toyed with this woman left her,
Speaker 1: had this great wife at home and kid. So people
Speaker 1: I think they said, you know what would go over
Speaker 1: the top is if the only sympathetic character in this movie,
Speaker 1: which is Ann Archer, is the one who does it
Speaker 1: right and it was effective, I'll give it to him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But apparently Glenn Closes like the original ending was
Speaker 2: way better.
Speaker 1: She washed her hands of it. Did you ever see
Speaker 1: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World? No, Michael, it's a good flick.
Speaker 1: The original ending of that one had him had his
Speaker 1: character ending up with his his love Entry knives Chow
Speaker 1: played by Ellen Wong instead of his dream girl Ramona Flowers,
Speaker 1: and 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. Right, he can't 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 how it was
Speaker 1: in the graphic novel too, So I don't know why
Speaker 1: they changed it to begin with.
Speaker 2: Who knows, So they went back to the original ending. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that it was of the material is adaptive.
Speaker 1: From that's right. Yeah, pretty in pink.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one's pretty famous too. I'd heard this many
Speaker 2: many years ago that originally they had Molly Ringwald ending
Speaker 2: up with John Cryer, Yeah, with Ducky rather than Blaine
Speaker 2: Andrew McCarthy, which, by the way, saw a Weekend at
Speaker 2: Bernie's again recently HiT's. Ah No, it's not that bad really, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's very thin. Well it's one. It's one good joke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but boy, they take it in so many directions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty funny, and it's amazing how young Jonathan
Speaker 2: Silverman and Andrew McCarthy look, I mean young.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the guy who played Bernie, who like I
Speaker 1: don't think ever did anything else. No, I never saw
Speaker 1: him anything else.
Speaker 2: He threw out the ball at like a Los Angeles
Speaker 2: Dodgers game or San Francisco Giants gamers some nineteen eighty seven. Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 2: like last season. Really, I don't remember the reason why,
Speaker 2: but it was like he's been working that character for
Speaker 2: a long time.
Speaker 1: Do you know it would have been genius if they
Speaker 1: would have had Silverman and McCarthy out there like grabbing
Speaker 1: his arm and throwing the ball for him as if
Speaker 1: he were dead, It would have been great. That would
Speaker 1: have been pretty good. I think they call that meta
Speaker 1: these days, Yeah, they do, or metas already out. It
Speaker 1: was like so two years ago, you know, uh, twenty
Speaker 1: eight days later you saw that one, right, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: one ends with Jim's Cillian Murphy's character dying in the
Speaker 1: original ending and his people who are going to rescue
Speaker 1: him just like going back out to fight the zombies again, right,
Speaker 1: are like, No, that stinks. I love this guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they he recovers. Yeah, didn't end in like
Speaker 2: a field or a.
Speaker 1: Meadow or they're like romping in the field and I
Speaker 1: think they see a plane.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Danny bow was like, oh, you want a
Speaker 2: happy ending. Yeah, I'll give you your happy, stupid ending.
Speaker 2: Here's your stupid ending. Choke un it, you, stupid audience.
Speaker 1: I like the ending, though I don't. I like both.
Speaker 1: I don't mind a happy ending when it's done well,
Speaker 1: but I also like dark endings. Yeah, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the It doesn't have to be one or the other.
Speaker 2: What about the opposite dark beginnings in un dark beginnings
Speaker 2: like with Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 1: All right, go ahead and break it down. I don't
Speaker 1: know that one. Oh have you ever seen Sunset Boulevard. No,
Speaker 1: that's on my left as a classic movie for a reason.
Speaker 1: It's a truly great movie. But apparently at the beginning
Speaker 1: of it, originally they had Bill Holden's Corpse, the character
Speaker 1: he plays Corpse, talking to other corpses in the morgue
Speaker 1: explaining how he got there. Oh wow, and audiences were like,
Speaker 1: is this a comedy?
Speaker 2: Like? What is going on here? Apparently a lot of
Speaker 2: people walked out and Billy Wilder, the director, was there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and some lady told him to his face that it
Speaker 2: was a steaming pile and maybe didn't know it was
Speaker 2: him or something like that. But the legend goes that
Speaker 2: she told them to his face, like this is terrible and.
Speaker 1: So steaming pile.
Speaker 2: He reshot the beginning to where it's Bill Holden's corpse,
Speaker 2: but it's a voiceover and he's not talking to other
Speaker 2: corpses in the morgue.
Speaker 1: But it's not a comedy, right, it's not at all.
Speaker 1: Maybe because it was Billy Wilder, people had an expectation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean there's some parts that you wonder like,
Speaker 2: did he mean that to be like kind of funny,
Speaker 2: like in a really dark way. Maybe, Yeah, it's quite possible.
Speaker 1: But great, I need to see that. I love Billy Walls.
Speaker 2: You should watch it, like tonight, doesn't matter the mood
Speaker 2: you're in, It doesn't matter what you got going on.
Speaker 2: Just you could watch Sunset Boulevard and be like, this
Speaker 2: is a great movie.
Speaker 1: Okay, Heathers. Did you see Heathers? The regular ending? Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the Yeah. The ending they went with was
Speaker 1: Christian Slater's character wants to blow up the school gymnasium
Speaker 1: during a basketball game, and Veronica what's her faces? Went
Speaker 1: on A Ryder's character shoots him dead, stops it, and
Speaker 1: ends up bonding with the outcast girl. Yes, and the
Speaker 1: original ending and the script I don't think this was
Speaker 1: an I don't think it was shot. But she kills
Speaker 1: Christian Slater's character, straps the bomb to herself and blows
Speaker 1: up the school and everyone has prom and Evan and
Speaker 1: like everybody gets along. The nerds and the geeks are
Speaker 1: all like living in harmony. Huh yeah, not bad. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I could see that. Blade Runner perhaps the most famous
Speaker 1: changed ending of all time.
Speaker 2: I had not heard that.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, the original ending of Blade Runner was
Speaker 1: very dark, and that's the one that ended up in
Speaker 1: the director's cut, Ridley Scott's director's cut.
Speaker 2: What was that ending?
Speaker 1: Basically that Harrison Ford is going to die, Well, that
Speaker 1: Rachel Ward is going to die because replicants have expiration dates,
Speaker 1: and is Harrison Ford a replicant or not? And it
Speaker 1: leaves open. I'm pretty sure the director's cut leaves it ambiguous,
Speaker 1: even though I think Ridley Scott came out years later
Speaker 1: and said, yeah, he is a replicant.
Speaker 2: So in the in the audience tested version, he turns
Speaker 2: to the camera and says directly the audience, Nope, I'm
Speaker 2: not a replicant.
Speaker 1: Not quite end but they all that terrible voiceover narration
Speaker 1: was added, you know, in the non director's cut, and
Speaker 1: they had the happy ending with infamous blue Sky shot
Speaker 1: the Only Blue Sky, and the whole movie was them
Speaker 1: like driving down the road at the end and explaining
Speaker 1: via voiceover that, well, not all replicants have an expiration date.
Speaker 1: You're special, so you don't have one. Wow, so we
Speaker 1: can just live together in harmony, and.
Speaker 2: That Philip K. Dick rolled over in his grave. Probably so.
Speaker 1: But that shot of the Only Blue Sky, it wasn't
Speaker 1: even from that movie. It was pulled from outtakes of
Speaker 1: The Shining, the beginning car scene in the Shining when
Speaker 1: they're driving.
Speaker 2: Up the road. Wow.
Speaker 1: So wow. Yeah, Blade Runner really screwed that one up.
Speaker 1: And really Scott, of course was he was not so
Speaker 1: happy about that.
Speaker 2: I can imagine this masterpiece. And then somebody tacks on
Speaker 2: outtakes from the shot of the movie. Yeah, weird, bad
Speaker 2: You got anything else? Nope, Okay, I don't either. We
Speaker 2: could probably do this for a while though, because there's
Speaker 2: plenty of other movies that were changed thanks to audiences.
Speaker 2: But if you are ever in a line at a
Speaker 2: movie theater and somebody trustworthy seeming comes up to you
Speaker 2: and I see you. If you want to be in
Speaker 2: a test audience, give it a shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and big thanks to Mental Floss for all. A
Speaker 1: lot of that list stuff came from one of their articles.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all I got.
Speaker 2: And if you want to know more about audience testing,
Speaker 2: type those words in the search bart HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2: And since I said that it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this oceans are cool if I
Speaker 1: pay attention. Hey, guys, love the show. I used to
Speaker 1: listen every day when I rode the trains from Brooklyn
Speaker 1: and to Manhattan to work, but recently I started to
Speaker 1: work in Brooklyn close enough for me to bike to,
Speaker 1: so I don't ride trains anymore. They're pros and cons
Speaker 1: to that. On one hand, I save over one hundred
Speaker 1: and ten dollars a month in metro card fees, don't
Speaker 1: have to wait for trains, which adds another twenty minutes
Speaker 1: to the Google Map travel times. On the downside, when
Speaker 1: it rains, I still have the bike to work, although
Speaker 1: I am learning to love that. And the other con
Speaker 1: is that I don't have time to listen to you.
Speaker 1: Guys as much. Since it's very detailed. I'm paying attention
Speaker 1: is key if I want to enjoy the show, and
Speaker 1: I need to keep my thoughts on the road. My
Speaker 1: commute is also down to fifteen minutes, which doesn't help
Speaker 1: much either. I need to reconcile this fellas. This morning,
Speaker 1: I tried to listen to The Ocean's episode while doing
Speaker 1: some work on my computer. Wasn't long before I knew
Speaker 1: I'd missed something critical. At some point, riptides were defined
Speaker 1: and laddered up to equatorial wins, a connection I recall
Speaker 1: from taking oceanography in high school. But I did not
Speaker 1: understand when I wasn't paying attention this morning. When I
Speaker 1: used to listen on the train, the show had my
Speaker 1: undivided attention. Now I'm trying to find a new time
Speaker 1: to listen. Maybe I'll save up shows and binge them
Speaker 1: on a nice long bike ride. And that is from
Speaker 1: Andrew Negroche nigrsh Nigros Negroch something like that. Interesting, I've
Speaker 1: never heard that name.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks a lot, Andrew. We appreciate you getting in
Speaker 2: touch with this. We hope you figure this out. This
Speaker 2: sounds like a terrible conundrum. Maybe get a new job
Speaker 2: that requires you fur. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go work in Vermont.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. Problem solved. If you have a
Speaker 2: problem that you want Chuck and I to solve for you,
Speaker 2: like we just did for Andrew, you can tweet to
Speaker 2: us at sysk podcast. You can join us on Facebook
Speaker 2: dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send
Speaker 2: us an email the Stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com
Speaker 2: and has always joined us at our home on the web.
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