COVER STORY : Lumet: ‘Cross Your Fingers’

During an interview for “A Stranger Among Us” at May’s Cannes Film Festival, veteran director Sidney Lumet called Hollywood’s growing obsession with preview screenings and focus groups one of the most troubling developments in the industry and said such research has been useless to him.

“I would guess seven-eighths of the movies you see have a new something shot after two or three previews,” Lumet said, in contrasting today’s film business with that of the ‘70s when he made “Serpico,” “Network” and “Dog Day Afternoon.” “I (made changes) on ‘The Morning After’ and ‘Family Business’ and found it absolutely useless. It didn’t help either one.”

Lumet compared Joe Farrell’s research to the political polls, which, he said, are usually wrong, and said Farrell, whom he personally admires, even acknowledges the inadequacies of the results in predicting hits.

“When you see one of those reports from Mr. Farrell, on the front page it says, ‘This report in no way can predict the financial success or failure of any movie,’ ” Lumet said. “My immediate reaction is then what do I need it for? Why did the studio spend $25,000 to poll that audience?”

Lumet said he thinks previews are necessary for comedies, where you can really find out if your film’s funny, or for thriller melodramas, where you can find out if they’re scary.

“Barring those two things,” he added, “I’d say you just have to just cross your fingers. I don’t know what the audience is going to do. Nobody does. My two highest-rated movies went into the toilet faster than you’ve ever seen.”

“Garbo Talks,” one of the two, got a 92% positive rating from preview audiences, Lumet said, and the other, “Family Business,” improved from a 59% to 89% after he agreed to shoot a new ending. In both instances, the studios were thrilled with the research, but the movies did very little business.

“I asked Farrell. I said ‘Joe, do you have a list of what the pictures scored in relation to what they grossed?’ He said, ‘No, we don’t do that.’ Somebody’s got that list and if they don’t, they really are throwing money away.”

Lumet said in May that he was considering changing the ending of “A Stranger Among Us,” a police drama starring Melanie Griffith, but it was not because of Farrell’s research.

“I like the ending, I think it works, but I wish we had something more original,” Lumet said. “A friend of mine, the lyricist Betty Comden, suggested an ending which I really like. If I can figure out how to do it in two minutes, I will.”

“A Stranger Among Us,” with a new ending suggested not by Joe Farrell’s research but by Betty Comden, opens Friday.