It's never certain how many changes are down to audience test screenings as the film is still being completed and would alter anyway. But in between the tests and the release of "Blade Runner", for instance, there were 70 changes.
The most obvious of those was the addition of an explanatory voiceover but there have been bigger alterations. "Best Defense", a Dudley Moore and Eddie Murphy vehicle, did not have Eddie Murphy in it at the test screenings, for example. The two never met, either. Murphy was hired for a new part that was shot and cut into the film at enormous expense.
Perhaps because the re-shoot failed to save "Best Defense", it's less common now to make such big changes. William Goldman, who has had his fair share of bad test screenings, claims that now it's good news when you hear of a re-shoot. "If a movie is a real stiff," he says, "the studios throw it out there as fast as you can... You only re-shoot if the studio thinks you have a hit."
That's borne out by director Rob Minkoff's experience on "Stuart Little" and he recounts that parts of the scene with Stuart in a washing machine were added only after the studios had seen the almost complete picture. Similarly, a sequence in "Men in Black" involving a computer-generated insect was shot fully six months after production wrapped - and again because the studios approved the cost after seeing the rest of the film.
Studios risking millions are clinging to test screenings as what Terry Gilliam calls a "specious scientific methodology" for predicting a hit.
But now you can guarantee that at least one member of the audience for any test will leak a report to the Internet within hours of the screening.
Go to Factory Line - Part 8 sidebar: Is the Test Better than the Result?
Go to Factory Line - Part 9: "I Own Fourth of July!"
Go to Factory Line - Part 7: First Sight
Factory Line Introduction
Factory Line Glossary
Sources:
"Look Closer: the making of American Beauty", "American Beauty" DVD - The Awards Edition, Universal (Region 1), 2000
"Future Noir: the Making of Blade Runner", Paul M Sammon, Orion Media, 1996, ISBN 0-75280-740-4
"Five Screenplays", William Goldman, Applause Books, 1997, ISBN 1-55783-266-8
"Men in Black" DVD, Barry Sonnenfeld director's commentary, Columbia TriStar Home Video, 2000
"The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys" documentary, "Twelve Monkeys" DVD, Universal Pictures Video, 1999.
