Test Screenings: The Net Effect

Test screenings of unfinished films, a refining process almost as old as movies themselves, are having a tough time moving into the 21st century.

The major studios are trying to move heaven and earth to protect the confidentiality of these previews but admit that, ultimately, there’s little they can do about the proliferation of Internet sites and other media that report the results of these works in progress months in advance of release.

“I guess the model of the research screening that existed for the past 10 years is undergoing some significant changes,” says Mark Shmuger, head of marketing for Universal Pictures. “And I don’t know where it will end up. Studios can’t blindly pretend that this sort of infiltration doesn’t have a bearing on the perception of the product.”

The studios have been living with the problem since the advent of entertainment sites on the Internet. But as it has accelerated with the proliferation of such sites, the studios have been trying to contain the situation. For instance, Disney has moved its test screenings onto the studio lot with smaller, more selectively chosen audiences.

“I don’t believe you need a big audience,” Disney Chairman Joe Roth says. “The results are usually the same whether you have 50 people or 500 people. It’s not foolproof. But it’s better than showing it to 700 people in Thousand Oaks.”

Others, including Fox, Warners and Universal, are going out of town to test most films, particularly higher-profile titles, which attract the most media interest. And some studio marketers, who asked not to be named, are fighting back by writing their own positive reviews to combat any negative notices a film might get on the Internet from test audiences. (The laudatory bogus reviews are easy to spot. They’re too well written.)

Still, most studio marketing executives admit there’s not much they can do to stop Internet reviews of test screenings or mitigate the effect of bad word of mouth that can appear on the Net months before a movie opens.

“We basically just have to live with it and move on,” says Tom Sherak, a 20th Century Fox senior executive. “It’s unfair to review an unfinished film. But not everything in life is fair.”

The problem was exacerbated recently when a local TV station decided to get into the preview game. Universal canceled two local test screenings of the new Arnold Schwarzenegger action film, “End of Days,” when KTTV encouraged its viewers to attend one of two planned sneaks in the San Fernando Valley and report back to the station, which would then air their comments.

Rough Cuts Shown to Gauge Reaction

Studio executives say it’s only a matter of time before it happens again. Next time it might not even be in Los Angeles but at one of the alternate screening sites, say in Phoenix or the San Francisco area.

Internet leaks are particularly damaging to the “production” screening process, which includes a long rough cut of the film being shown to gauge audience reaction. Based on the responses, films can lose entire scenes, subplots and characters.

Filmmakers often decide to re-shoot entire scenes, particularly endings, based on these screenings. The most famous example is “Fatal Attraction.” The original ending had the Glenn Close character committing suicide and making it seem that Michael Douglas had murdered her, but audiences thought it too bleak, so it was changed.

Because the production screenings are done as early as six months before a film’s release, damaging Internet reviews can be picked up by other media, which disseminate the word that a movie’s a stinker. This further complicates the studio marketing department’s job because it can mean having to defend a film that isn’t necessarily the movie that’s going to be released.

A perfect example is this year’s “Wild Wild West,” which was vilified in early Internet reviews even though director Barry Sonnenfeld re-shot part of the film. Of course, it doesn’t help when, despite re-shoots, the movie is still considered a stiff, validating the early leaks.

“It’s terrible pressure,” Phoenix Pictures’ head Mike Medavoy says, “especially if you’re with a studio that takes these test screenings as if they were the word of God.”

Early Internet reviews are only tiny pinpricks compared to the sting of the broadcast media getting into the game, according to DreamWorks marketing head Terry Press. For example, negative Internet notices for the company’s “Deep Impact” had little effect on the film’s ultimate box-office success. And the marketing screenings gave the company the kind of information that enabled it to make changes in the film. But if those reviews had been on TV, Press said she’s not sure the finished product could have overcome the early buzz.

“Television takes it out of a limited realm like the Internet into the No. 1 realm where movies are sold,” Press says. “And that’s really scary.”

Frightening perhaps, but also inevitable, especially if television is to remain competitive with new media, says former Warner and Disney marketing chief Chris Pula.

“Promotional managers at the stations have a tough job. They’re in the same competitive arena for the young consumer who has been raised on 100 cable channels and the Internet.”

Though there are restraint-of-trade laws in some states proscribing this kind of leak, no one’s prepared to take on the Internet or a TV station and risk creating a media martyr, says one studio executive. Another executive suggests that the studios get together and lay down the law to their stations, because today most of them are owned or affiliated with a studio (KTTV, for instance, is owned by Fox). But the chance of all the studios agreeing on a single course of action, he says, is minimal.

So the major studios are learning to live with the problem. Warners’ marketing head Brad Ball prefers to take the film to a less media-frenzied atmosphere than L.A. But that’s not foolproof because the Internet is available to everyone.

Ball likens the situation to “spy” photos (by auto magazines) of new car models being tested before they’re mass-produced; with cars and with movies, he says, the investments are substantial.

The difference is that movies usually have only one or two weekends to prove themselves. “It’s a bigger risk not to screen the film,” Ball says. “Therefore, it’s definitely a risk worth taking.”

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‘It’s terrible pressure, especially if you’re with a studio that takes these test screenings as if they were the word of God.’

Mike Medavoy, head of Phoenix Pictures