June 30, 2015 • 39 mins
Did you know some of our most beloved movies originally had different, sometimes better, endings? That is until they were tested in front of focus groups.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from How Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles w Judge Bryant, and Jerry's over there. So
let's just call this stuff you should shall we. Hey,
that's a good name for a show. Yeah. Yeah, and
(00:24):
I came up with that. You did, You're the inventor.
Then from that was hatched all of the stuff podcasts. Yeah,
but I mean how Stuff Works stuff. Yeah, but I
don't know. I think you're not you're selling yourself short.
It's okay. So this is another one of our movie
centric podcasts that people seem to love. Um, we've done
(00:47):
all kinds of things, from exploitation films, two movies that
change filmmaking, to how films are rated, the m n
p a A How TV ratings work. Yeah, ten exploitation films, Yeah,
that was a good one, and some movies that changed filmmaking.
That's right, it's all the stuff you just said. Yeah,
before we get going here, buddy, we need a blanket
(01:09):
spoiler because we're gonna be talking about movies that had
their endings changed and uh so this is your fair
warning that most of them are old movies. Most of
this information is out there, of course, but if you're
one of those people who gets really upset by this
kind of thing, you may want to um. You've been warned.
You've been warned, And now drum roll, we're gonna talk
(01:32):
about audience testing, which is depending on the filmmaker and
the film can be a really super awesome, valuable tool
a right, it can also be like a terrible the
worst thing that's ever happened to you. And apparently even
if you believe in the system, it's a terrible experience,
says Ron Howard. Yeah, he's he's a fame all not
(01:55):
famous for but he um is on record along with
his producing partner Brian graycer for who. By the way,
do you notice about Brian Grazer best haarent show business? Well, clearly, yeah,
but he has the habit of taking frame pictures of
himself over to people's houses and when they're not looking
like plants them among their family photos. That's pretty awesome,
(02:15):
pretty cool. That reminds me. I know, you hate George
Clinty's guts, but there's there's a famous uh practical he's
a big practical joker and he he prepared this one
over the course of like a year, supposedly told like
his best friends that he had taken up painting. Oh yeah,
that just kept that going and going, and then like
gave some of his close friends he's awful, awful paintings,
(02:37):
and you know you're kind of expected to hang it up.
They're like, oh, thanks, George. Yeah, that's a pretty good one.
This is great. Umbody felt so good about himself after that,
so glib so Ron Howard and his producing partner Brian
Greats are are on record is saying that they really
can get a lot out of it, and like what
they would hate is to put a movie out and
(02:58):
find out there's something they really easily could have corrected.
They either like confused or upset and an audience as
a whole. But he also said it's terrible to go through,
Like even when it's a good a good experience, it's
never a good experience. And that's um somebody who believes
in the system. So if you don't believe in the
system and you still have to go through it, like
(03:19):
Robert Altman did, He's not a test audience kind of guy. No,
can you imagine putting him through that that's like letting
all of the towns ladies bring Boo Radley that the
pies for killing Bob Yule. You know, you can't put
Robert Altman through the audience testing system. Who did they? Oh,
I don't know, a dummy because uh, yeah he was.
(03:42):
He was a Maverick filmmaker. My brother and my Emily
worked on movies with him. It's pretty neat legend. I know,
it's good stuff. I wish I could tell a couple
of the stories. But but I mean, did you expect
to get rich off of a Robert Altman movie? No,
apparently these people did. I wonder what his top grossing
movie ever was. Probably The Player or Mashed. I'll bet
(04:05):
it was mash movies didn't gross that much back then.
That Yeah, but it's it's a perennial classic. Yeah, that's true.
The Player was great. Yeah, I mean he's He's made
a lot of great movies and some kind of stinkers
as well. Yeah, but a lot of classics. Likenville ever
seen Nashville? No, I never saw in Nashville. So good.
So the Player shortcuts? Um, I didn't see the uh
(04:28):
the Lake Wobegone one with Lindsay Lohan for some reason.
What Yeah, they did a pry Home companion. Yeah, with
Lindsay Lohan. That's just weird. And um Meryl Street it
was like, not a good it's getting casting director super drunk.
(04:50):
I just have a point out photos head shots, and
then that's how we'll cast this. Uh, and then McCabe
and ms miller and that's a classic as well. Never
even heard of it. More in Batty liked mash though.
That was a good one. It was um so. Ron
Howard calls the process brutal and hideous. He said, even
if it's going well, it's not fun. Uh. Francis Ford
(05:11):
Coppola is somewhat responsible, although they have tested movies all
the way back in the thirties. Yeah, when audiences said,
you know that somewhere over the Rainbow song really slows
things down, it's at Thank goodness they didn't listen, because
that became one of the most iconic singing performances ever
(05:32):
in a movie. Yeah, and apparently pointing that out is
a really good way to talk somebody out of cutting
something that a test audience. Yeah, I think about Somewhere
over the Rainbow. Chief. So when Coppola was making Apocalypse
Now he um had focus groups, and yeah, I would
not have guessed that. Well, he that movie. You've seen
(05:55):
The Hearts of Darkness, right, No, the documentary about it. Yeah,
it's really that he had a lot of studio heat
coming down on him. You know you've got a great
movie when the documentary about your great movie is a
great movie. Yeah, that's a good point. It's really good.
I think his wife made that, although that's not necessarily true.
The best worst movie was a great documentary, and Trolls
two was not a good movie in any way, shape
(06:17):
or form. I've never heard the best worst movie. It's
about have you ever heard of Trolls? To? Hear Antrols? So,
I guess I've heard Antrols Too, apparently made by totally
different filmmakers, completely unconnected story wise and everything. This is
just Trolls to And this documentary caught up with the
people from Trolls Too, because it became like kind of
this cool hipster thing to like, look at how terrible
(06:38):
this movie is flat like the Room Um and this
documentary kind of followed this movement and went and found
the people who were in this movie who had no
idea this was going on and then like basically puts
them on the road, going around promoting showings of Trolls
too and just living it up. That was great documentary.
(06:59):
The documentary is good movie? Was it good? Right? So
I ate my own words understood now he didn't. But
I think one of your pals from UCB is in
it Controls too in the best worst movie the documentary.
You know, uh, one of the founders. No, not Matt Besser.
(07:20):
It might be, yes, it might be Matt Best. Maybe
I don't know, one of the guys from you. There's
like a bunch of UCB people in it. Yeah, but okay,
I got you. Besser was one of the founding members though,
with Amy Poehler and uh Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh.
This maybe Matt Walsh is the one that was in
old school, right, Yeah, so this is the other Matt.
(07:42):
I think he might be in it. Yeah, he's a
good guy. He listened to our show. Proved me wrong.
Matt proved me wrong. Razorbacks, that's for him. He's an
Arkansas fan. Or he just really likes Razorbacks. He's an
Arkansas guy. Yeah, he's just a fan of the pig
are we had an ad break yet not yet, not
until I finished the story about Coppola. Um He when
he was making Apocalypse Now hired a man named Joe
(08:05):
Farrell or Farrell to help with marketing, and Farrell said,
you know what, I see a pretty big opportunity here,
and so he partnered up with Katherine Katherine Para and
formed the National Research Group. UM. I don't know. I
don't think they're still exclusive, but at the time signed
all the studios to an exclusive contract to do their
(08:26):
audience testing. And I think they're still the top dog
in audience testing, even though I think there are other
companies that do it. Now. This is the company with
the extraordinarily secretive name n RG, the National Research Group. Yeah,
and they also do like contract hits I think for
the CIA and the n S A. No, but they
don't have a website that I could find, Like I
(08:48):
was trying to just get a little information about the company.
But they so they're a division of Nielsen. Well, which
of course they're super secretive. We already think they are.
But yeah, so it's crazy like this, it's like a cabal. Yeah,
you know, very much. So Randy Quaid was right, you
might be uh. And they don't just do audience testing.
They also, back when people had telephones, would do a
(09:11):
lot of um, just random calling and saying like market research,
like did you know this movie was coming out? Um,
it's called awareness. Yeah, awareness campaigns and stuff like that.
And then they split you into four quadrants, right, which
is the four quadrants that everyone on the planet is
divided into. Uh, men under twenty five, men over twenty five,
(09:34):
women under twenty five, and women over That's right, And
that's it. There's the division of importance. At age you
cross over and get put out to pasture basically. All right.
So that's a the longest setup in history. So wait
a minute. I want to make sure I understand what
you're saying, because I made a lot of jokes in
(09:57):
in the middle of all this they were flying. But
you're saying that n RG, the National Research Group, UM,
came out of focus groups done for apocalypse. Now, yes,
that's the way I understand it. Wow, Yeah, I did
not know that. Yeah, but they were already doing focus groups,
but this company really ran with it, I think in
the corner of the industry. Yeah, I got to all right,
(10:18):
So let's take that promised break, and we'll talk more
about audience testing right after this. Al Right, back with
audience testing. Um, there's many different reasons to test your movie. Uh.
(10:43):
Sometimes if it's a comedy, they will literally do multiple
screenings just to test little bits and little jokes. That
makes sense to me if you're testing a comedy, totally
makes sense because a couple of comedy writers that you
put into like a room and say, write this hilayerous
movie or take this dog of a movie and punch
(11:04):
it up with some jokes. It's very subjective. It might
sound funny to you, but then you're a movie executive
and you had like a three scotch launch, so everything
seems kind of funny right now, you know what I mean? Right,
So I get I get that, and then like this
joke landed, this joke didn't, this joke was too far,
and the like went against like what the what the
character we've developed so far? That and that to me
(11:27):
makes sense, Like I see audience testing to that end.
For sure, you see the value. But if it's like
should this explosion be more explosive, well, should this guy's
brain splatter like more or less? Well, with the violence,
you have a point they that is something they will
also test for it. It like, are you turned off
(11:48):
by the amount of violence? Could we dial it back
a little bit? Yeah? What was the movie that was
given an example in this article of of something that
was found to be too violent? Good Fellas? Yes, that
was in a Mental Floss article, right, yeah, yeah, Goodfellas.
The audience like he had and that was the first
movie scorsesey had ever tested, and um, yeah, that's another
(12:09):
guy I don't see like testing stuff. I'm really surprised
about Apocalypse mat Yeah. Well, like I said, it was
studio heat, Yeah, I gotch um, Yeah, scorsese I think
like forty or fifty people walked out in the first
ten minutes because of the violence. And they said that
they didn't like that third act where you know, just
that they thought it was too intense and apparently very
(12:30):
drawn out, way more drawn out than it even is now. Yeah,
they thought the ending of Good Fellows is too intense, right,
and again very drawn out. So he went to a
quick cut montage thing, which actually ended up making it
better because Henry Hill is like coked to the gills
at this point, and like that whole thing where like
he's looking driving, watching the helicopter that's following him. Um,
(12:54):
and it's like chop, chop, chop. It really gets the
point across it was. It was very effective. So it
worked in that case. I think, yes, right, the system works. Well,
I don't know about that. It worked in that case. Um,
So how these things work is if you live in
the Los Angeles area and you go to the mall,
or if you're even in a movie line, you've probably
(13:16):
been approached or seeing the people with clipboards. Um, don't
run away because they're not trying to sell you something.
They're trying to give you something, which is a free screening.
It's true, and they'll come and sign you up there.
I ask if you're interested, Hey, we got a new
uh Owen Wilson movie that we're screening in Burbank next
Friday night. And everybody starts murmuring, oh, I love them.
(13:36):
He's a national treasure, and everybody starts signing up. What's
with the nose? Um, he got a broken when he
was younger. It looks like more than once. I like
that didn't fix it though, Yeah, he was a smart alec.
That thing is just like so crooked and He's just like, yep,
this is me. He said. He always expected to do
something like go into advertising or whatever. But if you're
(13:57):
a buddy of Wes anderson Is from a young age,
are going into movies. Sorry, I'm a big fan of
him and his nose. Yeah, so, um, you're gonna get approached.
Like I said, Uh, probably in l A. But they
do test all over the country. Because we've talked about
will it play in Peoria. Sometimes they want to go
to Ohio and see what you know, someone outside of
(14:19):
the l A area feels about the movie. Right. But
the reason that your chances are vastly higher of being
asked to be in a test audience for a movie
in Los Angeles is because a lot of times the
people working on the movie who live in Los Angeles
have to attend these things because not only do they
want to um, they want to get the feedback from it,
(14:41):
which we'll find out about. They also want to experience
it firsthand, so they get a real feel for how
the audience is is responding. Yeah, and if you're eighteen
to thirty four, you're more likely to get approached because
that's the sweet spot of course that you talked about
If you're older than that, then forget it. No one
cares about you. No one cares about your. Give up
all of your dreams and work and yep, smoke a pipe,
(15:02):
be quiet. That's right. Um. If you are an assistant
editor or in any part of the editing crew, um,
it's gonna be a bit of a hellish experience because
you're going to be scrambling trying to temp in music
and temp in special effects like some really hackneyed version
of special effects, just so they know. Like in the
(15:23):
scene it's going to be a spaceship, right, the editors like, well,
just cut to this stock quick quick time footage of
a spaceship lanning and get the point across. Like sure.
So they're gonna be scrambling trying to put together as
much of a finished project as they can. Um. And
most of the times they will also be at the theater.
They're gonna cue it up and watch it just to
(15:43):
make sure it's ready to roll. Yeah, before the audience
sees it. You're gonna have a moderator. Have you ever
been to a test screen? No of you? Yeah? Cool? Yeah,
it's neat what I don't remember. Wow, it must not
have been very good movie. It was a long time ago. Um, yeah,
that was it. I love that movie. It wasn't I
(16:04):
did watch that the other night though, in full That's
what that was. That was one of the songs that
I sang at piano karaoke, couple of dollars songs saying
that you mean I sang I was in the stream?
Did she did the Kenny Rogers part and you did
the Dolly part. We switched it up. Nine to five
is very hard song to sing, by the way, and
that movie holds up. Man, it's still very funny. The
(16:26):
great Dabney Coleman, great Lily Common, the great Dolly Parton,
great Jane Fonda, the great Jane Fonda so good, and
you know, the three of them, like it was just
a great shoot. There were best buds and they remained
friends all these years later. You can tell. Yeah, it's
kind of neat. Uh Alright, So where was I. Oh, Yeah,
(16:49):
someone's gonna introduce the movie and they're gonna get you
all excited and like everyone's glad to be here. So
you know when Wilson's new movie, right, everybody reached under
your scene for some free red vines. Yeah, you might
get little free something you never know. Uh, and they're
going to explain, like what you're about to see is
gonna be a little rough in parts and the effects
aren't complete, so just don't take that into account. They're
(17:10):
they're not looking for like, well, maybe you should color
correct it a little more before you release it. They're
aware of that. Um, I think you're supposed to take
the green screen out of the shot. What they're looking
for is pacing. They want to know you as like
an audience members, keeping up with the movie and how
it's how it is going right, Yeah, you're gonna well,
you're gonna watch the movie just as cleanly as possible,
(17:33):
and then you're gonna have to fill out comment cards
and um, they're pretty standard, but they can tailor it
for the movie. Like, um, it's like, let's say you
think there's a problem with one of the characters. They
might specifically say, like, what do you think about the
Luke Wilson character? Too much? Too little Owen Wilson. Uh,
they might ask your favorite parts, your least favorite parts? Um,
(17:57):
how how did it flow to anything stand out to
you as like could you follow it the whole time? Yeah?
Did it make sense? That's that's a good one. Right,
What did you think of the jokes? Yeah? What do
you think of the jokes? They drill down, They try
and get as specific as they can, and these are
just the comment cards. Yeah. Supposedly, if you're in the
demographic that they're shooting for and release and you're at
(18:19):
this thing, as you're trying to leave, they might come
up to you and be like, hey, like, yeah, this
is just kind of the slobby like audience. You want
to be part of a real focus group with us.
And then you follow the stranger to a second location. Yeah,
do you follow him to a van with a little
round window in the back, this big covered over with
a black plastic bag. Uh? That got dark? It did.
(18:44):
So the big thing they're looking for, though, the money
question is would you recommend this movie to a friend?
That's the one thing they want to know, and that
is where you're gonna get your overall score that they
really are going to hone in on. Right. They want
to know that so bad that if they don't say
I definitely would, they don't even count that. Yeah you
(19:06):
can say like, oh yeah, maybe probably Nope, So a movie,
a movie gets a score at the end, and it's
based apparently exclusively on whether or not you said you
would definitely recommend the movie to a friend. Yeah, out
of a hundred people, they will score that so yeah,
or out of it however many people. But for example,
out of a hundred, if um, sixty people say that yeah,
(19:29):
I guess I would recommend it to a friend, and
forty people say that they definitely would, that movie got
to score forty terrible, not even like like you can't
even take into account that yeah, probably you have to
say you definitely would recommend it to a friend to
get a point for that movie. Yeah, And they said
in this article, I'm sure there's a huge caveats and
(19:51):
a sliding scale, but uh and anything over eighty they
think they're in pretty decent shape. I would guess a
low the average, they've been a lot less than eighties lately,
except of course from Matt max x Man that was
pretty great movie. Good. Um. They asking this article that
makes you wonder, like when you when a train wreck
(20:13):
of a movie comes out, like what happened? Did they
focus screwp it? Did they test screen it? Did they
ignore it? Like? What? What? How does that thing get released?
Is the question, are you asking me? Well, I mean no,
I'm just throwing it out there. I'm not the one
who's been the one of these tests creating. No. It
does make you wonder though, like they probably did they
(20:34):
didn't screen it, or the the people who had um
edit rights didn't care to listen. But this, this article
keeps picking on glitter, which seems mean because there's a
lot of stinkers out there. Apparently humans sent three has
the I think it came out recently. Is this the
one in prison? I don't know. I think it's the first,
(20:57):
Like hundreds of people. It has the lowest meta critic
score of all time. Really, you saw the persone? Yeah?
Have you seen it? Nod? This definitely we're seeing I
just think I get it just by seeing the trailer.
You would No, No, I mean there's no real surprises
beyond what you've seen in the trailer. But um, it's
(21:22):
not even appreciating it in an ironic way, even taking
it on its own terms, you're kind of like it's
worth seeing at least once, like can't be disturbing or yeah, okay,
but not not like um, not like hostile can't be disturbing?
Have you seen hostile. Yeah, I didn't think that was
very campy. There was just straight up disturbing. This one
(21:45):
already disturbing. The guy was definitely going for an already
bent despite the premise of the movie. Alright, but yeah,
there's some disturbing stuff. I'm curious to see if that
guy has anything left in his bag of tricks, because
you can only go mouth the butt for so long.
What's them? What's can't be disturbing? Give me an example
of that thing? Oh? I think, um, like, uh, like
(22:09):
a reanimator type of thing. Oh yeah, okay, I see, yeah,
hostiles not can't be disturbing. Reanimator definitely is. Um. Can
we talk about Tom Cruise for a minute and how
obnoxious this move was. Yeah, I guess he really believed
in the way the editing process was already going. Yeah,
he crashed his own test screening of Mission Impossible three, allegedly,
(22:34):
uh and ran in there and I was like, Hey, everybody,
I'm Tom Cruise, Let's high five each other, enjoy the movie,
give me a couch to jump on. I mean, can
you believe that that totally negates the purpose of an
audience screening because everyone there, I'm sure there were a
few people are like, oh hatred gut too weirdough, But
the rest of people like, oh my god, Tom Cruise
(22:54):
just came into the very test screening like they probably
didn't feel good about writing negative comments, right, you know,
he just here. He might want to like hang out
with me after this, and I want to be able
to tell him that I gave him high marks. I
can't believe he did that. I can't believe he did that. Actually,
yeah I can too. Um So. By the way, also,
there is a really interesting long form article in l
(23:17):
a Weekly from about a year ago called how YouTube
and Internet journalism destroyed Tom Cruise our last real movie star.
And it's it's not an apologist's view, but it definitely
defends him against a lot of um it's it's just
read it. I'm still a fan of his acting in
(23:41):
most cases, Like that Edge of Tomorrow movie was terrific. Yeah,
I haven't seen it yet and I've heard nothing but
good things about it. It was really good. But no,
I can still watch his movies and separate that from
the wacko in real life. This is um yes, this
is defending is acting as well, but it's defending is
that public perception of him as being a whack go
(24:01):
and it basically like really kind of pulls apart like
all the layers and you're like, oh yeah, Like it
really goes to town stressing that he never jumped up
and down on the couch, right, He just jumped up
on the couch exactly, But they go to great links
to point out that that is not the same thing.
It's just off handedly saying, oh, yeah, he jumped up
and down on that couch like he was crazy. Now
(24:21):
he jumped up on the couch once and then stepped
down or something like that. So it's a really great article,
really interesting because he's just been like around for so
long now that it's really it's almost surprising to see
somebody step up, not as like a crusader on behalf
of Time cruise, but just more to be like, everybody
put your knives away. Well, I think the nives are out,
(24:43):
not just because like, oh, he's a scientologist and people
think that's weird. It's like when you dig down into
scientology and find out the things that he abides by,
like the slave labor to decorate his cars and to
wash his truck, and you know that that makes you
kind of not a good person, you know, I see
what you mean. Like, that's beyond like, oh, that's just
(25:04):
a strange religion. That's like people are being paid fifteen
since an hour to take care of me. Oh, if
they're being paid, that's not slavery. That's true. That's a
good point. Um, what was the what's the name of
the Was it an HBO documentary? Clear? Yeah? Based on
the book going clear, I saw the guy um who
(25:27):
wrote the book come speak. Really I don't remember his name,
but like, I mean, how whatever you think of his
book for his journalism, that guy had brass ones. Really,
he's the one who did it. He's the one who
went after scientology when no one else would touch it.
He's the guy who did And apparently five million lawyers
(25:49):
read that book before it was ever published. I think
HBO supposedly had like a hundred attorneys when they went
to adapt it as a documentary. And this is after
it had already been vetted by all of the lawyer
in the book publishing world. It's good, the great book. Alright,
let's take another break here, and when we come back,
we'll talk about some of the more famous examples of
(26:10):
movies that have been changed due to audience screenings. It's
gonna be so good, so chuck, there's um. There's some
(26:31):
legendary changes to movies that have been made over the years.
Like we mentioned the Wizard of Oz that was not
a change actually, but like a test audience suggested it
be taken out somewhere over the rainbow apparently. Um. Also,
very famously, James Bonds movie License to Kill was originally
(26:51):
called License Revoked, and even after all the promotion material
posters have been made, they changed the name because American
test audiences were like, I don't understand what the title means,
Like his driver's license was for folks, and they were serious. Yeah,
it was weird. I mean it sounds like a like
a Queen Latifa comedy, you know, like where she's a
(27:12):
bus school sassy school bus ever and they like the
K and the R backwards or something like that. And
the poster yeah, absolutely, Um, she's as pretty woman. The movie,
the saccharin feel good movie from Richard Dear and Julia
Roberts apparently not started out. No, this is hysterical to me.
(27:34):
It was originally titled three thousand based on the amount
of money it costs to hire a hooker for a week. Sure,
that would have made no sense. Yeah, apparently they changed
the name not because of the test sudies, because the
exacts were like, it sounds too science fiction e and
they were right. They were right, Pretty woman, it's a
much better title for that movie. Uh. And then apparently
(27:55):
it was had a lot darker edge when it was
in script form, and it ended it with Richard Gear's
character kicking Julia Robert's character out of his car and
driving away. That's how it ended. Not very rom comy. No, No,
it wasn't a rom com That was Gary Marshall. But
(28:16):
see what I want to know is Gary Marshall, he's
he's a rom comy director. No, that's what I'm saying.
He made that like what I wanna. It seems to
me like all that would have changed with Gary Marshall,
not like in test screening. Yes, I think that's what happened.
And then that what the test audience, the hand they
played was that they're like, you need to change that ending. Okay, God,
they need to get together. Um, Fatal Attraction famously changed. Yeah,
(28:41):
So the ending of Fatal Attraction apparently has Glenn cost.
Glenn Close, who's Michael Douglas, is former one night stand
turned stalker um killing herself flitting her own throat. Yeah,
pretty good with a knife with Michael Douglas's fingerprints on it.
And then Michael Douglas is arrested for her murder. Yeah,
(29:01):
and like it's supposed to, they don't show trials and things,
but ends with him going to prison and that's a
great ending. Glenn Close loved it. She was very sad
when audiences were like, Nope, we hate this character so much,
like she has to be killed off. She can't kill herself.
Somebody has to kill her and just for good measure
and make it the wife. Well that makes sense because
(29:23):
I think people people weren't rooting for Michael Douglas in
that movie either because he was such a jerk um
toyed with this woman left her, had this great wife
at home and kid. So people I think they said,
you know what would go over the top is if
the only sympathetic character in this movie, which is Anne Archer,
(29:43):
is the one who does it right and that was effective.
I'll give it to him. Yeah, But apparently Glenn Close
is like the original ending was way better she washed
her hands of it. Did you ever see Scott Pilgrim
Versus the World? It's a good flick. Um. The original
in ing of that one had him had his character
(30:04):
ending up with his his love interest Um knives Chow
played by Ellen Wong instead of his dream girl Ramona
Flowers and Um. The test audiences didn't like that and said, basically,
this guy spent the whole movie annoyed by this girlfriend
(30:25):
and pining for this other girl and defeating her evil
ex boyfriends. He he can just not end up with
her at the end. It's very anticlimactic. So they said,
all right, we'll change it. And that's what wasn't the
graphic novel too, So I don't know why they changed
it to begin with. They went back to the original
ending that it was of the material was adapted from.
(30:47):
That's right, Yeah, pretty and pink. Yeah, this one's pretty
famous too. Like I had heard this many many years
ago that originally they had Molly Ringwald ending up with
John Cryer with Ducky rather than Blaine Andrew McCarthy, which,
by the way, I saw, we can have Bernie's again.
Recently HiT's uh no, it's not that bad, really, it's
(31:11):
very thin. Well it's one joke, Um the boy. They
take it in so many directions. It's pretty funny. And um,
it's amazing how young Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy look,
I mean young. Yeah, and the guy who played Bernie,
who was like, I don't think ever did anything else.
(31:32):
I never saw him do anything else. He threw out
the ball at like a Los Angeles Dodgers game or
San Francisco Giants game. No, no, like last season. Really
I don't remember the reason why, but it was like
he's been working out that character for a long time.
You know, it would have been genius if they would
have had Silverman and McCarthy out there like grabbing his
(31:55):
arm and throwing the ball for him as if he
were dead. It would have been great. That would have
been prett good. I think they call that meta these days, Yeah,
they do, or meta is already out And I was like,
so two years ago, you know, twenty eight days later
he saw that one, right. That one ends with Jim's
(32:15):
Cillian Murphy's character um dying in the original ending and
his people who are going to rescue him just like
going back out to fight the zombies again. Right, They're like, no,
that stinks. I love this guy. Yeah, so they he
recovers yeah in the end in like a field or
a meadow, or they're like romping in the field and
(32:37):
I think they see a plane. I'm sure. Danny Bow
was like, Oh, you want a happy ending, give your happy,
stupid ending, your stupid ending, chiku, stupid audience. I like
the ending, though I don't. I like both. I don't
mind a happy ending when it's done well, but also
like dark endings. Yeah, you know one of the it
doesn't have to be one or the other. What about
the opposite dark beginnings and un dark beginnings, like with
(33:01):
the Sunset Boulevard. All right, go ahead and break it down.
I don't know that one. Oh have you ever seen
Sunset Boulevard. No, that's on my list as a classic
movie for a reason. It's a truly great movie. But
apparently at the beginning of it, originally they had Bill
Holden's Corpse, the character he plays Corpse, talking to other
(33:23):
corpses in the morgue explaining how he got there, and
audiences were like, is this a comedy? Like? What what
is going on here? Apparently, and a lot of people
walked out and Billy Wilder, the director, was there, and
some lady told him to his face that it was
a steaming pile and maybe didn't know it was him
or something like that. But the the uh, the the
(33:45):
legend goes that she told them to his face like
this is terrible, and he reshot the beginning to where
it's Bill Holden's corpse but it's a voiceover and it's
he's not talking to other corpses in the morgue. But
it's not a comedy, right, not at all. Maybe because
it was Billy Wilder, people had an expectation. Yeah, And
(34:05):
I mean there's some parts that you wonder like, did
he mean that to be like kind of funny, like
in a really dark way. Maybe, Yeah, it's quite possible,
but I need to see that. You should watch it
like tonight. It doesn't matter the mood, Darine, it doesn't
matter what you gut going on. Just you could watch
Sunset Boulevard and be like, this is a great movie. Um, Heathers,
(34:26):
did you see Heathers? Um? The regular ending? Well, I'm sorry,
the yeah. The the ending they went with was Christian
Slater's character, Um wants to blow up the school gymnasium
during a basketball game and Veronica, uh, what's her face?
Is one on a writer's character shoots him dead, stops
(34:49):
it and ends up bonding with the the outcast girl. Yes. Um,
in the original ending and the script, I don't think
this was an I don't think it was shot, but um,
she kills Christian Slater's character, straps the bomb to herself
and blows up the school and everyone has prom in
heaven and like everybody gets along. The nerds and the
(35:12):
geeks are all like living in harmony. Yeah, not bad,
You're like, yeah, I could see that. Blade Runner perhaps
the most famous changed ending of all time. I have
not heard that. Yes, you know, the original ending of
Blade Runner was very dark, and that's the one that
ended up in the director's cut. Ridley Scott's director's cut
(35:33):
was basically that that Harrison Ford is going to die,
and well that Rachel Ward is going to die because
replicants have expiration dates, and is Harrison Ford a replicant
or not? And it leaves it open. I'm pretty sure
the director's cut leaves it ambiguous, even though I think
Redley Scott came out years later and said, yeah, he
is a replicate. So in the in the audience tested version,
(35:56):
he turns to the camera and says directly the audience, Nope,
not a replicant. Not quite. But they all that terrible
voiceover narration was added, you know, in the non director's cut,
and they had the happy ending with um infamous blue
sky shot the Only Blue Sky, and the whole movie
was then like driving down the road at the end
and explaining via voiceover that well, not all replicants have
(36:21):
an expiration date. You're special, so you don't have one,
so we can just live together in harmony, and that
Philip k roll over in his grave probably so. But
that shot of the Only Blue Sky wasn't even from
that movie. It was pulled from out takes of the shining,
the beginning car scene and the shining when they're driving
(36:42):
up the road. So yeah, blade Runner really screwed that
one up, and really Scott, of course, was he was
not so happy about that. I can imagine master piece.
And then somebody tacks on out takes from the movie. Yeah,
we'd be bad. Uh, you got anything else? Nope, Okay,
(37:03):
I don't either. We could probably do this for a
while though, because there's plenty of other movies that were
changed thanks to audiences. But if you're ever in a
line at a movie theater and somebody trustworthy seeing Seeming
comes up to you and I see if you want
to be in a test audience, give it a shot. Yeah,
and the big thanks to Mental Philoss for all. A
lot of that list stuff came from one of their articles.
(37:23):
Yeah that's right. Um, yeah, that's all I got. And
if you want to know more about audience testing, type
those words in the search part how stuff works dot com.
And since I said that it's time for a listener mail,
I'm gonna call this Oceans are cool if I pay attention. Um, Hey,
guys love the show. I used to listen every day
when I rode the trains from Brooklyn into Manhattan to work,
(37:44):
but recently I started to work in Brooklyn close enough
for me to bike too, so I don't write trains anymore.
They're pros and cons for that. On one hand, I
save over a hundred and ten dollars a month in
metro card fees don't have to wait for trains, which
adds another twenty minutes to the Google Map travel times.
On the downside, when it rains, it stuff to bike
to work, although I am learning to love that. And
(38:07):
the other con is that I don't have time to
listen to you guys as much, since it's very detailed
and paying attention is key if I want to enjoy
the show and I need to keep my thoughts on
the road. My commute is also uh down to fifteen minutes,
which doesn't help much either. I need to reconcile this fellas.
This morning, I tried to listen to the Oceans episode
while doing some work on my computer. Wasn't long before
(38:28):
I knew I had missed something critical. At some point,
rip tides were defined and laddered up to equatorial winds,
a connection I recalled from taking oceanography in high school.
But I did not understand when I wasn't paying attention
this morning. When I used to listen on the train,
the show had my undivided attention. Now I'm trying to
find a new time to listen. Maybe I'll save up
shows and binge them on a nice long bike ride.
(38:51):
And that is from Andrew uh Negross in I g
R S H die Gross Negross something like that. Interesting.
I've never heard that name. Well, thanks a lot Andrew.
We appreciate you getting in touch with us. We hope
you figure this out. This sounds like a terrible conundrum.
Maybe get a new job that requires you further away. Yeah, yeah,
(39:13):
go work in the Vermont. Yeah. There you go, a
problem solved. If you have a problem that you want
Chuck and Eye to solve for you, like we just
did for Andrew, you can tweet to us at s
Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
us an email the Stuff podcast at how stuff Works
dot com and has always joined us at our home
on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
(39:41):
more on this and thousands of other topics, is it
how stuff Works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from How Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles w Judge Bryant, and Jerry's over there. So
let's just call this stuff you should shall we. Hey,
that's a good name for a show. Yeah. Yeah, and
(00:24):
I came up with that. You did, You're the inventor.
Then from that was hatched all of the stuff podcasts. Yeah,
but I mean how Stuff Works stuff. Yeah, but I
don't know. I think you're not you're selling yourself short.
It's okay. So this is another one of our movie
centric podcasts that people seem to love. Um, we've done
(00:47):
all kinds of things, from exploitation films, two movies that
change filmmaking, to how films are rated, the m n
p a A How TV ratings work. Yeah, ten exploitation films, Yeah,
that was a good one, and some movies that changed filmmaking.
That's right, it's all the stuff you just said. Yeah,
before we get going here, buddy, we need a blanket
(01:09):
spoiler because we're gonna be talking about movies that had
their endings changed and uh so this is your fair
warning that most of them are old movies. Most of
this information is out there, of course, but if you're
one of those people who gets really upset by this
kind of thing, you may want to um. You've been warned.
You've been warned, And now drum roll, we're gonna talk
(01:32):
about audience testing, which is depending on the filmmaker and
the film can be a really super awesome, valuable tool
a right, it can also be like a terrible the
worst thing that's ever happened to you. And apparently even
if you believe in the system, it's a terrible experience,
says Ron Howard. Yeah, he's he's a fame all not
(01:55):
famous for but he um is on record along with
his producing partner Brian graycer for who. By the way,
do you notice about Brian Grazer best haarent show business? Well, clearly, yeah,
but he has the habit of taking frame pictures of
himself over to people's houses and when they're not looking
like plants them among their family photos. That's pretty awesome,
(02:15):
pretty cool. That reminds me. I know, you hate George
Clinty's guts, but there's there's a famous uh practical he's
a big practical joker and he he prepared this one
over the course of like a year, supposedly told like
his best friends that he had taken up painting. Oh yeah,
that just kept that going and going, and then like
gave some of his close friends he's awful, awful paintings,
(02:37):
and you know you're kind of expected to hang it up.
They're like, oh, thanks, George. Yeah, that's a pretty good one.
This is great. Umbody felt so good about himself after that,
so glib so Ron Howard and his producing partner Brian
Greats are are on record is saying that they really
can get a lot out of it, and like what
they would hate is to put a movie out and
(02:58):
find out there's something they really easily could have corrected.
They either like confused or upset and an audience as
a whole. But he also said it's terrible to go through,
Like even when it's a good a good experience, it's
never a good experience. And that's um somebody who believes
in the system. So if you don't believe in the
system and you still have to go through it, like
(03:19):
Robert Altman did, He's not a test audience kind of guy. No,
can you imagine putting him through that that's like letting
all of the towns ladies bring Boo Radley that the
pies for killing Bob Yule. You know, you can't put
Robert Altman through the audience testing system. Who did they? Oh,
I don't know, a dummy because uh, yeah he was.
(03:42):
He was a Maverick filmmaker. My brother and my Emily
worked on movies with him. It's pretty neat legend. I know,
it's good stuff. I wish I could tell a couple
of the stories. But but I mean, did you expect
to get rich off of a Robert Altman movie? No,
apparently these people did. I wonder what his top grossing
movie ever was. Probably The Player or Mashed. I'll bet
(04:05):
it was mash movies didn't gross that much back then.
That Yeah, but it's it's a perennial classic. Yeah, that's true.
The Player was great. Yeah, I mean he's He's made
a lot of great movies and some kind of stinkers
as well. Yeah, but a lot of classics. Likenville ever
seen Nashville? No, I never saw in Nashville. So good.
So the Player shortcuts? Um, I didn't see the uh
(04:28):
the Lake Wobegone one with Lindsay Lohan for some reason.
What Yeah, they did a pry Home companion. Yeah, with
Lindsay Lohan. That's just weird. And um Meryl Street it
was like, not a good it's getting casting director super drunk.
(04:50):
I just have a point out photos head shots, and
then that's how we'll cast this. Uh, and then McCabe
and ms miller and that's a classic as well. Never
even heard of it. More in Batty liked mash though.
That was a good one. It was um so. Ron
Howard calls the process brutal and hideous. He said, even
if it's going well, it's not fun. Uh. Francis Ford
(05:11):
Coppola is somewhat responsible, although they have tested movies all
the way back in the thirties. Yeah, when audiences said,
you know that somewhere over the Rainbow song really slows
things down, it's at Thank goodness they didn't listen, because
that became one of the most iconic singing performances ever
(05:32):
in a movie. Yeah, and apparently pointing that out is
a really good way to talk somebody out of cutting
something that a test audience. Yeah, I think about Somewhere
over the Rainbow. Chief. So when Coppola was making Apocalypse
Now he um had focus groups, and yeah, I would
not have guessed that. Well, he that movie. You've seen
(05:55):
The Hearts of Darkness, right, No, the documentary about it. Yeah,
it's really that he had a lot of studio heat
coming down on him. You know you've got a great
movie when the documentary about your great movie is a
great movie. Yeah, that's a good point. It's really good.
I think his wife made that, although that's not necessarily true.
The best worst movie was a great documentary, and Trolls
two was not a good movie in any way, shape
(06:17):
or form. I've never heard the best worst movie. It's
about have you ever heard of Trolls? To? Hear Antrols? So,
I guess I've heard Antrols Too, apparently made by totally
different filmmakers, completely unconnected story wise and everything. This is
just Trolls to And this documentary caught up with the
people from Trolls Too, because it became like kind of
this cool hipster thing to like, look at how terrible
(06:38):
this movie is flat like the Room Um and this
documentary kind of followed this movement and went and found
the people who were in this movie who had no
idea this was going on and then like basically puts
them on the road, going around promoting showings of Trolls
too and just living it up. That was great documentary.
(06:59):
The documentary is good movie? Was it good? Right? So
I ate my own words understood now he didn't. But
I think one of your pals from UCB is in
it Controls too in the best worst movie the documentary.
You know, uh, one of the founders. No, not Matt Besser.
(07:20):
It might be, yes, it might be Matt Best. Maybe
I don't know, one of the guys from you. There's
like a bunch of UCB people in it. Yeah, but okay,
I got you. Besser was one of the founding members though,
with Amy Poehler and uh Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh.
This maybe Matt Walsh is the one that was in
old school, right, Yeah, so this is the other Matt.
(07:42):
I think he might be in it. Yeah, he's a
good guy. He listened to our show. Proved me wrong.
Matt proved me wrong. Razorbacks, that's for him. He's an
Arkansas fan. Or he just really likes Razorbacks. He's an
Arkansas guy. Yeah, he's just a fan of the pig
are we had an ad break yet not yet, not
until I finished the story about Coppola. Um He when
he was making Apocalypse Now hired a man named Joe
(08:05):
Farrell or Farrell to help with marketing, and Farrell said,
you know what, I see a pretty big opportunity here,
and so he partnered up with Katherine Katherine Para and
formed the National Research Group. UM. I don't know. I
don't think they're still exclusive, but at the time signed
all the studios to an exclusive contract to do their
(08:26):
audience testing. And I think they're still the top dog
in audience testing, even though I think there are other
companies that do it. Now. This is the company with
the extraordinarily secretive name n RG, the National Research Group. Yeah,
and they also do like contract hits I think for
the CIA and the n S A. No, but they
don't have a website that I could find, Like I
(08:48):
was trying to just get a little information about the company.
But they so they're a division of Nielsen. Well, which
of course they're super secretive. We already think they are.
But yeah, so it's crazy like this, it's like a cabal. Yeah,
you know, very much. So Randy Quaid was right, you
might be uh. And they don't just do audience testing.
They also, back when people had telephones, would do a
(09:11):
lot of um, just random calling and saying like market research,
like did you know this movie was coming out? Um,
it's called awareness. Yeah, awareness campaigns and stuff like that.
And then they split you into four quadrants, right, which
is the four quadrants that everyone on the planet is
divided into. Uh, men under twenty five, men over twenty five,
(09:34):
women under twenty five, and women over That's right, And
that's it. There's the division of importance. At age you
cross over and get put out to pasture basically. All right.
So that's a the longest setup in history. So wait
a minute. I want to make sure I understand what
you're saying, because I made a lot of jokes in
(09:57):
in the middle of all this they were flying. But
you're saying that n RG, the National Research Group, UM,
came out of focus groups done for apocalypse. Now, yes,
that's the way I understand it. Wow, Yeah, I did
not know that. Yeah, but they were already doing focus groups,
but this company really ran with it, I think in
the corner of the industry. Yeah, I got to all right,
(10:18):
So let's take that promised break, and we'll talk more
about audience testing right after this. Al Right, back with
audience testing. Um, there's many different reasons to test your movie. Uh.
(10:43):
Sometimes if it's a comedy, they will literally do multiple
screenings just to test little bits and little jokes. That
makes sense to me if you're testing a comedy, totally
makes sense because a couple of comedy writers that you
put into like a room and say, write this hilayerous
movie or take this dog of a movie and punch
(11:04):
it up with some jokes. It's very subjective. It might
sound funny to you, but then you're a movie executive
and you had like a three scotch launch, so everything
seems kind of funny right now, you know what I mean? Right,
So I get I get that, and then like this
joke landed, this joke didn't, this joke was too far,
and the like went against like what the what the
character we've developed so far? That and that to me
(11:27):
makes sense, Like I see audience testing to that end.
For sure, you see the value. But if it's like
should this explosion be more explosive, well, should this guy's
brain splatter like more or less? Well, with the violence,
you have a point they that is something they will
also test for it. It like, are you turned off
(11:48):
by the amount of violence? Could we dial it back
a little bit? Yeah? What was the movie that was
given an example in this article of of something that
was found to be too violent? Good Fellas? Yes, that
was in a Mental Floss article, right, yeah, yeah, Goodfellas.
The audience like he had and that was the first
movie scorsesey had ever tested, and um, yeah, that's another
(12:09):
guy I don't see like testing stuff. I'm really surprised
about Apocalypse mat Yeah. Well, like I said, it was
studio heat, Yeah, I gotch um, Yeah, scorsese I think
like forty or fifty people walked out in the first
ten minutes because of the violence. And they said that
they didn't like that third act where you know, just
that they thought it was too intense and apparently very
(12:30):
drawn out, way more drawn out than it even is now. Yeah,
they thought the ending of Good Fellows is too intense, right,
and again very drawn out. So he went to a
quick cut montage thing, which actually ended up making it
better because Henry Hill is like coked to the gills
at this point, and like that whole thing where like
he's looking driving, watching the helicopter that's following him. Um,
(12:54):
and it's like chop, chop, chop. It really gets the
point across it was. It was very effective. So it
worked in that case. I think, yes, right, the system works. Well,
I don't know about that. It worked in that case. Um,
So how these things work is if you live in
the Los Angeles area and you go to the mall,
or if you're even in a movie line, you've probably
(13:16):
been approached or seeing the people with clipboards. Um, don't
run away because they're not trying to sell you something.
They're trying to give you something, which is a free screening.
It's true, and they'll come and sign you up there.
I ask if you're interested, Hey, we got a new
uh Owen Wilson movie that we're screening in Burbank next
Friday night. And everybody starts murmuring, oh, I love them.
(13:36):
He's a national treasure, and everybody starts signing up. What's
with the nose? Um, he got a broken when he
was younger. It looks like more than once. I like
that didn't fix it though, Yeah, he was a smart alec.
That thing is just like so crooked and He's just like, yep,
this is me. He said. He always expected to do
something like go into advertising or whatever. But if you're
(13:57):
a buddy of Wes anderson Is from a young age,
are going into movies. Sorry, I'm a big fan of
him and his nose. Yeah, so, um, you're gonna get approached.
Like I said, Uh, probably in l A. But they
do test all over the country. Because we've talked about
will it play in Peoria. Sometimes they want to go
to Ohio and see what you know, someone outside of
(14:19):
the l A area feels about the movie. Right. But
the reason that your chances are vastly higher of being
asked to be in a test audience for a movie
in Los Angeles is because a lot of times the
people working on the movie who live in Los Angeles
have to attend these things because not only do they
want to um, they want to get the feedback from it,
(14:41):
which we'll find out about. They also want to experience
it firsthand, so they get a real feel for how
the audience is is responding. Yeah, and if you're eighteen
to thirty four, you're more likely to get approached because
that's the sweet spot of course that you talked about
If you're older than that, then forget it. No one
cares about you. No one cares about your. Give up
all of your dreams and work and yep, smoke a pipe,
(15:02):
be quiet. That's right. Um. If you are an assistant
editor or in any part of the editing crew, um,
it's gonna be a bit of a hellish experience because
you're going to be scrambling trying to temp in music
and temp in special effects like some really hackneyed version
of special effects, just so they know. Like in the
(15:23):
scene it's going to be a spaceship, right, the editors like, well,
just cut to this stock quick quick time footage of
a spaceship lanning and get the point across. Like sure.
So they're gonna be scrambling trying to put together as
much of a finished project as they can. Um. And
most of the times they will also be at the theater.
They're gonna cue it up and watch it just to
(15:43):
make sure it's ready to roll. Yeah, before the audience
sees it. You're gonna have a moderator. Have you ever
been to a test screen? No of you? Yeah? Cool? Yeah,
it's neat what I don't remember. Wow, it must not
have been very good movie. It was a long time ago. Um, yeah,
that was it. I love that movie. It wasn't I
(16:04):
did watch that the other night though, in full That's
what that was. That was one of the songs that
I sang at piano karaoke, couple of dollars songs saying
that you mean I sang I was in the stream?
Did she did the Kenny Rogers part and you did
the Dolly part. We switched it up. Nine to five
is very hard song to sing, by the way, and
that movie holds up. Man, it's still very funny. The
(16:26):
great Dabney Coleman, great Lily Common, the great Dolly Parton,
great Jane Fonda, the great Jane Fonda so good, and
you know, the three of them, like it was just
a great shoot. There were best buds and they remained
friends all these years later. You can tell. Yeah, it's
kind of neat. Uh Alright, So where was I. Oh, Yeah,
(16:49):
someone's gonna introduce the movie and they're gonna get you
all excited and like everyone's glad to be here. So
you know when Wilson's new movie, right, everybody reached under
your scene for some free red vines. Yeah, you might
get little free something you never know. Uh, and they're
going to explain, like what you're about to see is
gonna be a little rough in parts and the effects
aren't complete, so just don't take that into account. They're
(17:10):
they're not looking for like, well, maybe you should color
correct it a little more before you release it. They're
aware of that. Um, I think you're supposed to take
the green screen out of the shot. What they're looking
for is pacing. They want to know you as like
an audience members, keeping up with the movie and how
it's how it is going right, Yeah, you're gonna well,
you're gonna watch the movie just as cleanly as possible,
(17:33):
and then you're gonna have to fill out comment cards
and um, they're pretty standard, but they can tailor it
for the movie. Like, um, it's like, let's say you
think there's a problem with one of the characters. They
might specifically say, like, what do you think about the
Luke Wilson character? Too much? Too little Owen Wilson. Uh,
they might ask your favorite parts, your least favorite parts? Um,
(17:57):
how how did it flow to anything stand out to
you as like could you follow it the whole time? Yeah?
Did it make sense? That's that's a good one. Right,
What did you think of the jokes? Yeah? What do
you think of the jokes? They drill down, They try
and get as specific as they can, and these are
just the comment cards. Yeah. Supposedly, if you're in the
demographic that they're shooting for and release and you're at
(18:19):
this thing, as you're trying to leave, they might come
up to you and be like, hey, like, yeah, this
is just kind of the slobby like audience. You want
to be part of a real focus group with us.
And then you follow the stranger to a second location. Yeah,
do you follow him to a van with a little
round window in the back, this big covered over with
a black plastic bag. Uh? That got dark? It did.
(18:44):
So the big thing they're looking for, though, the money
question is would you recommend this movie to a friend?
That's the one thing they want to know, and that
is where you're gonna get your overall score that they
really are going to hone in on. Right. They want
to know that so bad that if they don't say
I definitely would, they don't even count that. Yeah you
(19:06):
can say like, oh yeah, maybe probably Nope, So a movie,
a movie gets a score at the end, and it's
based apparently exclusively on whether or not you said you
would definitely recommend the movie to a friend. Yeah, out
of a hundred people, they will score that so yeah,
or out of it however many people. But for example,
out of a hundred, if um, sixty people say that yeah,
(19:29):
I guess I would recommend it to a friend, and
forty people say that they definitely would, that movie got
to score forty terrible, not even like like you can't
even take into account that yeah, probably you have to
say you definitely would recommend it to a friend to
get a point for that movie. Yeah, And they said
in this article, I'm sure there's a huge caveats and
(19:51):
a sliding scale, but uh and anything over eighty they
think they're in pretty decent shape. I would guess a
low the average, they've been a lot less than eighties lately,
except of course from Matt max x Man that was
pretty great movie. Good. Um. They asking this article that
makes you wonder, like when you when a train wreck
(20:13):
of a movie comes out, like what happened? Did they
focus screwp it? Did they test screen it? Did they
ignore it? Like? What? What? How does that thing get released?
Is the question, are you asking me? Well, I mean no,
I'm just throwing it out there. I'm not the one
who's been the one of these tests creating. No. It
does make you wonder though, like they probably did they
(20:34):
didn't screen it, or the the people who had um
edit rights didn't care to listen. But this, this article
keeps picking on glitter, which seems mean because there's a
lot of stinkers out there. Apparently humans sent three has
the I think it came out recently. Is this the
one in prison? I don't know. I think it's the first,
(20:57):
Like hundreds of people. It has the lowest meta critic
score of all time. Really, you saw the persone? Yeah?
Have you seen it? Nod? This definitely we're seeing I
just think I get it just by seeing the trailer.
You would No, No, I mean there's no real surprises
beyond what you've seen in the trailer. But um, it's
(21:22):
not even appreciating it in an ironic way, even taking
it on its own terms, you're kind of like it's
worth seeing at least once, like can't be disturbing or yeah, okay,
but not not like um, not like hostile can't be disturbing?
Have you seen hostile. Yeah, I didn't think that was
very campy. There was just straight up disturbing. This one
(21:45):
already disturbing. The guy was definitely going for an already
bent despite the premise of the movie. Alright, but yeah,
there's some disturbing stuff. I'm curious to see if that
guy has anything left in his bag of tricks, because
you can only go mouth the butt for so long.
What's them? What's can't be disturbing? Give me an example
of that thing? Oh? I think, um, like, uh, like
(22:09):
a reanimator type of thing. Oh yeah, okay, I see, yeah,
hostiles not can't be disturbing. Reanimator definitely is. Um. Can
we talk about Tom Cruise for a minute and how
obnoxious this move was. Yeah, I guess he really believed
in the way the editing process was already going. Yeah,
he crashed his own test screening of Mission Impossible three, allegedly,
(22:34):
uh and ran in there and I was like, Hey, everybody,
I'm Tom Cruise, Let's high five each other, enjoy the movie,
give me a couch to jump on. I mean, can
you believe that that totally negates the purpose of an
audience screening because everyone there, I'm sure there were a
few people are like, oh hatred gut too weirdough, But
the rest of people like, oh my god, Tom Cruise
(22:54):
just came into the very test screening like they probably
didn't feel good about writing negative comments, right, you know,
he just here. He might want to like hang out
with me after this, and I want to be able
to tell him that I gave him high marks. I
can't believe he did that. I can't believe he did that. Actually,
yeah I can too. Um So. By the way, also,
there is a really interesting long form article in l
(23:17):
a Weekly from about a year ago called how YouTube
and Internet journalism destroyed Tom Cruise our last real movie star.
And it's it's not an apologist's view, but it definitely
defends him against a lot of um it's it's just
read it. I'm still a fan of his acting in
(23:41):
most cases, Like that Edge of Tomorrow movie was terrific. Yeah,
I haven't seen it yet and I've heard nothing but
good things about it. It was really good. But no,
I can still watch his movies and separate that from
the wacko in real life. This is um yes, this
is defending is acting as well, but it's defending is
that public perception of him as being a whack go
(24:01):
and it basically like really kind of pulls apart like
all the layers and you're like, oh yeah, Like it
really goes to town stressing that he never jumped up
and down on the couch, right, He just jumped up
on the couch exactly, But they go to great links
to point out that that is not the same thing.
It's just off handedly saying, oh, yeah, he jumped up
and down on that couch like he was crazy. Now
(24:21):
he jumped up on the couch once and then stepped
down or something like that. So it's a really great article,
really interesting because he's just been like around for so
long now that it's really it's almost surprising to see
somebody step up, not as like a crusader on behalf
of Time cruise, but just more to be like, everybody
put your knives away. Well, I think the nives are out,
(24:43):
not just because like, oh, he's a scientologist and people
think that's weird. It's like when you dig down into
scientology and find out the things that he abides by,
like the slave labor to decorate his cars and to
wash his truck, and you know that that makes you
kind of not a good person, you know, I see
what you mean. Like, that's beyond like, oh, that's just
(25:04):
a strange religion. That's like people are being paid fifteen
since an hour to take care of me. Oh, if
they're being paid, that's not slavery. That's true. That's a
good point. Um, what was the what's the name of
the Was it an HBO documentary? Clear? Yeah? Based on
the book going clear, I saw the guy um who
(25:27):
wrote the book come speak. Really I don't remember his name,
but like, I mean, how whatever you think of his
book for his journalism, that guy had brass ones. Really,
he's the one who did it. He's the one who
went after scientology when no one else would touch it.
He's the guy who did And apparently five million lawyers
(25:49):
read that book before it was ever published. I think
HBO supposedly had like a hundred attorneys when they went
to adapt it as a documentary. And this is after
it had already been vetted by all of the lawyer
in the book publishing world. It's good, the great book. Alright,
let's take another break here, and when we come back,
we'll talk about some of the more famous examples of
(26:10):
movies that have been changed due to audience screenings. It's
gonna be so good, so chuck, there's um. There's some
(26:31):
legendary changes to movies that have been made over the years.
Like we mentioned the Wizard of Oz that was not
a change actually, but like a test audience suggested it
be taken out somewhere over the rainbow apparently. Um. Also,
very famously, James Bonds movie License to Kill was originally
(26:51):
called License Revoked, and even after all the promotion material
posters have been made, they changed the name because American
test audiences were like, I don't understand what the title means,
Like his driver's license was for folks, and they were serious. Yeah,
it was weird. I mean it sounds like a like
a Queen Latifa comedy, you know, like where she's a
(27:12):
bus school sassy school bus ever and they like the
K and the R backwards or something like that. And
the poster yeah, absolutely, Um, she's as pretty woman. The movie,
the saccharin feel good movie from Richard Dear and Julia
Roberts apparently not started out. No, this is hysterical to me.
(27:34):
It was originally titled three thousand based on the amount
of money it costs to hire a hooker for a week. Sure,
that would have made no sense. Yeah, apparently they changed
the name not because of the test sudies, because the
exacts were like, it sounds too science fiction e and
they were right. They were right, Pretty woman, it's a
much better title for that movie. Uh. And then apparently
(27:55):
it was had a lot darker edge when it was
in script form, and it ended it with Richard Gear's
character kicking Julia Robert's character out of his car and
driving away. That's how it ended. Not very rom comy. No, No,
it wasn't a rom com That was Gary Marshall. But
(28:16):
see what I want to know is Gary Marshall, he's
he's a rom comy director. No, that's what I'm saying.
He made that like what I wanna. It seems to
me like all that would have changed with Gary Marshall,
not like in test screening. Yes, I think that's what happened.
And then that what the test audience, the hand they
played was that they're like, you need to change that ending. Okay, God,
they need to get together. Um, Fatal Attraction famously changed. Yeah,
(28:41):
So the ending of Fatal Attraction apparently has Glenn cost.
Glenn Close, who's Michael Douglas, is former one night stand
turned stalker um killing herself flitting her own throat. Yeah,
pretty good with a knife with Michael Douglas's fingerprints on it.
And then Michael Douglas is arrested for her murder. Yeah,
(29:01):
and like it's supposed to, they don't show trials and things,
but ends with him going to prison and that's a
great ending. Glenn Close loved it. She was very sad
when audiences were like, Nope, we hate this character so much,
like she has to be killed off. She can't kill herself.
Somebody has to kill her and just for good measure
and make it the wife. Well that makes sense because
(29:23):
I think people people weren't rooting for Michael Douglas in
that movie either because he was such a jerk um
toyed with this woman left her, had this great wife
at home and kid. So people I think they said,
you know what would go over the top is if
the only sympathetic character in this movie, which is Anne Archer,
(29:43):
is the one who does it right and that was effective.
I'll give it to him. Yeah, But apparently Glenn Close
is like the original ending was way better she washed
her hands of it. Did you ever see Scott Pilgrim
Versus the World? It's a good flick. Um. The original
in ing of that one had him had his character
(30:04):
ending up with his his love interest Um knives Chow
played by Ellen Wong instead of his dream girl Ramona
Flowers and Um. The test audiences didn't like that and said, basically,
this guy spent the whole movie annoyed by this girlfriend
(30:25):
and pining for this other girl and defeating her evil
ex boyfriends. He he can just not end up with
her at the end. It's very anticlimactic. So they said,
all right, we'll change it. And that's what wasn't the
graphic novel too, So I don't know why they changed
it to begin with. They went back to the original
ending that it was of the material was adapted from.
(30:47):
That's right, Yeah, pretty and pink. Yeah, this one's pretty
famous too. Like I had heard this many many years
ago that originally they had Molly Ringwald ending up with
John Cryer with Ducky rather than Blaine Andrew McCarthy, which,
by the way, I saw, we can have Bernie's again.
Recently HiT's uh no, it's not that bad, really, it's
(31:11):
very thin. Well it's one joke, Um the boy. They
take it in so many directions. It's pretty funny. And um,
it's amazing how young Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy look,
I mean young. Yeah, and the guy who played Bernie,
who was like, I don't think ever did anything else.
(31:32):
I never saw him do anything else. He threw out
the ball at like a Los Angeles Dodgers game or
San Francisco Giants game. No, no, like last season. Really
I don't remember the reason why, but it was like
he's been working out that character for a long time.
You know, it would have been genius if they would
have had Silverman and McCarthy out there like grabbing his
(31:55):
arm and throwing the ball for him as if he
were dead. It would have been great. That would have
been prett good. I think they call that meta these days, Yeah,
they do, or meta is already out And I was like,
so two years ago, you know, twenty eight days later
he saw that one, right. That one ends with Jim's
(32:15):
Cillian Murphy's character um dying in the original ending and
his people who are going to rescue him just like
going back out to fight the zombies again. Right, They're like, no,
that stinks. I love this guy. Yeah, so they he
recovers yeah in the end in like a field or
a meadow, or they're like romping in the field and
(32:37):
I think they see a plane. I'm sure. Danny Bow
was like, Oh, you want a happy ending, give your happy,
stupid ending, your stupid ending, chiku, stupid audience. I like
the ending, though I don't. I like both. I don't
mind a happy ending when it's done well, but also
like dark endings. Yeah, you know one of the it
doesn't have to be one or the other. What about
the opposite dark beginnings and un dark beginnings, like with
(33:01):
the Sunset Boulevard. All right, go ahead and break it down.
I don't know that one. Oh have you ever seen
Sunset Boulevard. No, that's on my list as a classic
movie for a reason. It's a truly great movie. But
apparently at the beginning of it, originally they had Bill
Holden's Corpse, the character he plays Corpse, talking to other
(33:23):
corpses in the morgue explaining how he got there, and
audiences were like, is this a comedy? Like? What what
is going on here? Apparently, and a lot of people
walked out and Billy Wilder, the director, was there, and
some lady told him to his face that it was
a steaming pile and maybe didn't know it was him
or something like that. But the the uh, the the
(33:45):
legend goes that she told them to his face like
this is terrible, and he reshot the beginning to where
it's Bill Holden's corpse but it's a voiceover and it's
he's not talking to other corpses in the morgue. But
it's not a comedy, right, not at all. Maybe because
it was Billy Wilder, people had an expectation. Yeah, And
(34:05):
I mean there's some parts that you wonder like, did
he mean that to be like kind of funny, like
in a really dark way. Maybe, Yeah, it's quite possible,
but I need to see that. You should watch it
like tonight. It doesn't matter the mood, Darine, it doesn't
matter what you gut going on. Just you could watch
Sunset Boulevard and be like, this is a great movie. Um, Heathers,
(34:26):
did you see Heathers? Um? The regular ending? Well, I'm sorry,
the yeah. The the ending they went with was Christian
Slater's character, Um wants to blow up the school gymnasium
during a basketball game and Veronica, uh, what's her face?
Is one on a writer's character shoots him dead, stops
(34:49):
it and ends up bonding with the the outcast girl. Yes. Um,
in the original ending and the script, I don't think
this was an I don't think it was shot, but um,
she kills Christian Slater's character, straps the bomb to herself
and blows up the school and everyone has prom in
heaven and like everybody gets along. The nerds and the
(35:12):
geeks are all like living in harmony. Yeah, not bad,
You're like, yeah, I could see that. Blade Runner perhaps
the most famous changed ending of all time. I have
not heard that. Yes, you know, the original ending of
Blade Runner was very dark, and that's the one that
ended up in the director's cut. Ridley Scott's director's cut
(35:33):
was basically that that Harrison Ford is going to die,
and well that Rachel Ward is going to die because
replicants have expiration dates, and is Harrison Ford a replicant
or not? And it leaves it open. I'm pretty sure
the director's cut leaves it ambiguous, even though I think
Redley Scott came out years later and said, yeah, he
is a replicate. So in the in the audience tested version,
(35:56):
he turns to the camera and says directly the audience, Nope,
not a replicant. Not quite. But they all that terrible
voiceover narration was added, you know, in the non director's cut,
and they had the happy ending with um infamous blue
sky shot the Only Blue Sky, and the whole movie
was then like driving down the road at the end
and explaining via voiceover that well, not all replicants have
(36:21):
an expiration date. You're special, so you don't have one,
so we can just live together in harmony, and that
Philip k roll over in his grave probably so. But
that shot of the Only Blue Sky wasn't even from
that movie. It was pulled from out takes of the shining,
the beginning car scene and the shining when they're driving
(36:42):
up the road. So yeah, blade Runner really screwed that
one up, and really Scott, of course, was he was
not so happy about that. I can imagine master piece.
And then somebody tacks on out takes from the movie. Yeah,
we'd be bad. Uh, you got anything else? Nope, Okay,
(37:03):
I don't either. We could probably do this for a
while though, because there's plenty of other movies that were
changed thanks to audiences. But if you're ever in a
line at a movie theater and somebody trustworthy seeing Seeming
comes up to you and I see if you want
to be in a test audience, give it a shot. Yeah,
and the big thanks to Mental Philoss for all. A
lot of that list stuff came from one of their articles.
(37:23):
Yeah that's right. Um, yeah, that's all I got. And
if you want to know more about audience testing, type
those words in the search part how stuff works dot com.
And since I said that it's time for a listener mail,
I'm gonna call this Oceans are cool if I pay attention. Um, Hey,
guys love the show. I used to listen every day
when I rode the trains from Brooklyn into Manhattan to work,
(37:44):
but recently I started to work in Brooklyn close enough
for me to bike too, so I don't write trains anymore.
They're pros and cons for that. On one hand, I
save over a hundred and ten dollars a month in
metro card fees don't have to wait for trains, which
adds another twenty minutes to the Google Map travel times.
On the downside, when it rains, it stuff to bike
to work, although I am learning to love that. And
(38:07):
the other con is that I don't have time to
listen to you guys as much, since it's very detailed
and paying attention is key if I want to enjoy
the show and I need to keep my thoughts on
the road. My commute is also uh down to fifteen minutes,
which doesn't help much either. I need to reconcile this fellas.
This morning, I tried to listen to the Oceans episode
while doing some work on my computer. Wasn't long before
(38:28):
I knew I had missed something critical. At some point,
rip tides were defined and laddered up to equatorial winds,
a connection I recalled from taking oceanography in high school.
But I did not understand when I wasn't paying attention
this morning. When I used to listen on the train,
the show had my undivided attention. Now I'm trying to
find a new time to listen. Maybe I'll save up
shows and binge them on a nice long bike ride.
(38:51):
And that is from Andrew uh Negross in I g
R S H die Gross Negross something like that. Interesting.
I've never heard that name. Well, thanks a lot Andrew.
We appreciate you getting in touch with us. We hope
you figure this out. This sounds like a terrible conundrum.
Maybe get a new job that requires you further away. Yeah, yeah,
(39:13):
go work in the Vermont. Yeah. There you go, a
problem solved. If you have a problem that you want
Chuck and Eye to solve for you, like we just
did for Andrew, you can tweet to us at s
Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
us an email the Stuff podcast at how stuff Works
dot com and has always joined us at our home
on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
(39:41):
more on this and thousands of other topics, is it
how stuff Works dot com.
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