Stuff You Should Know - How Audience Testing Works

Episode Date: June 30, 2015

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there. So let's just call this Stuff You Should Know, shall we? Hey, that's a good name for a show. Yeah, I came up with that.

You did. You're the inventor. And from that was hatched all of the stuff podcasts. Yeah, but I mean, HowStuffWorks stuff, yeah, but I don't know, I think you're selling yourself short. It's okay. So this is another one of our movie-centric podcasts that people seem to love. We've done all kinds of things from exploitation films to movies that change filmmaking to how

films are rated. Yeah, the MPAA. MPAA. How TV ratings work. Yeah. 10 exploitation films. Yeah, that was a good one. And some movies that changed filmmaking.

That's right. All the stuff you just said. Yeah. Before we get going here, buddy, we need a blanket spoiler because we're going to be talking about movies that had their endings changed, and so this is your fair warning. Most of them are old movies. Most of this information is out there, of course. Yes.

But if you're one of those people who gets really upset by this kind of thing, you may want to- You've been warned. You've been warned. And now, drumroll, we're going to talk about audience testing, which is, depending on the filmmaker in the film, can be a really super awesome, valuable tool. All right. It can also be like a terrible-

The worst thing that's ever happened to you. Yep. And apparently, even if you believe in the system, it's a terrible experience, says Ron Howard. Yeah. He's a famous- well, not famous for, but he is on record along with his producing partner, Brian Grazer, for- Who, by the way, do you know us about Brian Grazer?

Best hair and 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, he plants them among their family photos. That's pretty awesome. Pretty cool. That reminds me, I know you hate George Clooney's guts, but there's a-

I never said that. There's a famous, he's a big practical joker, and 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, I've heard that. And just kept that going and going, and then like gave some of his close friends, he's got awful, awful paintings, and you know, you're kind of expected to hang it up. Right. And you're like, oh, thanks George.

Yeah, that's a pretty good one. This is great. I bet he felt so good about himself after that. So glib. So Ron Howard and his producing partner, Brian Grazer, are on record as saying that they really can get a lot out of it, and like what they would hate is to put a movie out and find out there's something they really easily could have corrected, either like confused or upset an audience as a whole.

But he also said it's terrible to go through. Like even when it's a good experience, it's never a good experience. And that's somebody who believes in the system. If you don't believe in the system and you still have to go through it like 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 town's ladies bring Boo Radley that the pies for killing Bob Ewell.

You know? Yeah. You can't put Robert Altman through the audience testing system. Who did that? Oh, I don't know. A dummy because yeah, 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 I mean, did you expect to get rich off of a Robert Altman movie? No. I don't know. Apparently these people did.

I wonder what his top grossing movie ever was, probably The Player. Or Mash. I'll bet it was Mash. Yeah. Movies didn't gross that much back then. Yeah, but it's good. Adjusted. It's a perennial classic.

Yeah. That's true. The Player was great. Yeah. I mean, he's made a lot of great movies and some kind of stinkers as well. Oh, yeah. But a lot of classics. Like Nashville.

Have you ever seen Nashville? No. I never saw Nashville. Man, so good. I saw The Player. Shortcuts. Shortcuts. Yeah.

I saw the Lake Wobagon one with Lindsay Lohan for some reason. What? Yeah, they did a... Oh, did he do Prairie Home Companion? They did a Prairie Home Companion with Lindsay Lohan. That's just weird. And Meryl Streep. It was like...

Not a good idea. Let's get a casting director. Super drunk. Yeah. They just have him point out photos, headshots, and then that's how we'll cast this. And then McCabe and Miss Miller, that's a classic as well. Never even heard of it. Warren Beatty.

I liked MASH, though. That was a good one. It was. So Ron Howard calls the process brutal and hideous. Yeah. He said, even if it's going well, it's not fun. Yeah. Francis Ford Coppola is somewhat responsible, although they have tested movies all the way

back in the 30s. The Wizard of Oz. Yeah. When the audience has said, you know, that somewhere over the rainbow song really slows things down. It's a stinker. Get it out of there. Yeah.

Thank goodness they didn't listen because that became one of the most iconic singing performances ever 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 has said to you. Remember Wizard of Oz? Yeah. Think about somewhere over the rainbow, chief.

So when Coppola was making Apocalypse Now, he had focus groups and... Really? Yeah. I would not have guessed that. Well, that movie, you've seen the Hearts of Darkness, right? No, the documentary about it? Yeah. No.

It's really good. 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 II was not a good movie in any way, shape, or form. I've never heard of Best Worst Movie. It's about... Have you ever heard of Trolls II? I've heard of Trolls, so I guess I've heard of Trolls II. Apparently made by totally different filmmakers, completely unconnected, story-wise, and everything.

This is just Trolls II. Gotcha. And this documentary caught up with the people from Trolls II because it became kind of this cool hipster thing to like, look at how terrible this movie is, like the room. 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 basically puts them on the road going around promoting showings of Trolls II and just living it up. So that was great documentary.

Oh, the documentary is good. The movie wasn't good. Right. Okay. So I ate my own words. Understood. No, you didn't. But I think one of your pals from UCB is in it.

In Trolls II? In the Best Worst Movie. Who? The documentary. Do you know? Oh, man. One of the founders? No.

Not Matt Besser or Matt Walsh. Or Matt Walsh. Yes. It might be Matt Besser. Besser? 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 Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh. This may be. Matt Walsh is the one that was in old school, right? Yeah.

So this is the other Matt. Yeah. I think he might be in it. Yeah. He's a good guy. He listens to our show. Prove me wrong, Matt. Prove me wrong.

Go Razorbacks. He's an Arkansas fan or he just really likes Razorbacks? No. He's an Arkansas guy. Gotcha. Yeah. He's just a fan of the pig. Are we at an ad break yet?

Not yet. Not until I finish the story about Coppola. He when he was making Apocalypse Now hired a man named Joe Farrell or Pharrell to help with marketing. And Pharrell said, you know what? I see a pretty big opportunity here. And so he partnered up with Katherine Para and formed the National Research Group. 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 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 NRG, the National Research Group. Yeah. And they also do like contract hits, I think, for the CIA and the NSA. No, but they don't have a website that I could find.

Like I was trying to just get a little information about the company. But so they're a division of Nielsen. Well, which of course they're super secretive. 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. He might be. And they don't just do audience testing. They also, back when people had telephones, would do a lot of just random calling and saying like market research, like did you know this movie was coming out? 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. Men under 25, men over 25, women under 25, and women over 25. That's right. And that doesn't matter. That's it.

There's the division of importance at age 25. You cross over and get put out to pasture basically. All right. So that's the longest set up 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 the middle of all this. They were flying.

But you're saying that NRG, the National Research Group, came out of focus groups done for Apocalypse Now. Yes. That's the way I understand it. Wow. Yeah. Did not know that. They were flying focus groups, but this company really ran with it, I think, in corner of

the industry. Yeah. I got you. All right. So let's take that promised break and we'll talk more about audience testing right after this. Hey, everybody, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb?

And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren and Nova Scotia who realized she could Airbnb her cozy backyard treehouse and the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life.

In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop, but just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world

came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, back with audience testing.

There are many different reasons to test your movie. 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, it totally makes sense because a couple of comedy writers that you put into a room and say, write this hilarious movie or take this dog of a movie and punch 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 a three-scotch lunch, so everything seems kind of funny right now. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's the 1960s. Right. So I get that. And then this joke landed.

This joke didn't. This joke was too far. It went against the character we've developed so far. That to me 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 70% more explosive or should this guy's brain splatter like more or less?

Well with the violence, you have a point. That is something they will also test for it at like, are you turned off 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 something that was found to be too violent? Goodfellas?

Yes. Yeah. It was in a mental floss article, right? Yeah. Yeah. Goodfellas, the audience, like he had, and that was the first movie Scorsese had ever tested. Yeah.

Yeah. That's another guy. I don't see like testing stuff. I'm really surprised about Apocalypse Now. Yeah. Well, like I said, it was studio heat. Yeah. Got you.

Yeah. Scorsese. I think like 40 or 50 people walked out in the first 10 minutes because of the violence. And they said that they didn't like that third act where, you know, just thought it was too intense. And apparently very drawn out, way more drawn out than it even is now. Yeah. They thought the ending of Goodfellas was too intense.

Right. And again, very drawn out. So he went to a quick cut montage thing. Yeah. Which actually ended up making it better because Henry Hill is like Coke to the Gills at this point. Sure. And like that whole thing where like he's looking, driving, watching the helicopter that's following

him. Yeah. And it's like chop, chop, chop. It really gets the point across. Yeah. 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. Right. 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 been approached or seen the people

with clipboards 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. That's true. And they'll come and sign you up. They'll ask if you're interested. Hey, we got a new Owen Wilson movie that we're screening in Burbank next Friday night. And everybody starts to remember me. Oh, Owen Wilson.

Oh, I love Owen Wilson. He's a national treasure. And everybody starts signing up. What's with the nose? He got it broken when he was younger. It looks like more than once. Yeah. I like that he 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 a buddy of Wes Anderson's from a young age, you're going into movies. Sorry. I'm a big fan of him and his nose. Yeah.

So you're going to get approached, like I said, probably in LA, but they do test all over the country because we've talked about, will it play in Peoria? Yeah. So you want to go to Ohio and see what, you know, someone outside of the LA 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, they want to get the feedback from it, which we'll find out about. They want to experience it firsthand. Sure. So they get a real feel for how the audience is responding. Yeah. And if you're 18 to 34, you're more likely to get approached because that's the sweet

spot, of course, that you talked about. Yeah. If you're older than that, then forget it. No one cares about you. No one cares about your thinking. Just give up all of your dreams and work and smoke pipe, be quiet. That's right. If you are an assistant editor or any part of the editing crew, it's going to 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 scene, it's going to be a spaceship. The editor's like, well, can I just cut to this stock quick time footage of a spaceship landing and get the point across? Sure. So they're going to be scrambling, trying to put together as much of a finished project as they can.

And most of the times, they will also be at the theater, they're going to queue it up and watch it just to make sure it's ready to roll before the audience sees it. You're going to have a moderator? You ever been to a test screening? No. Have you? Yeah. Cool.

Yeah, it's neat. What? I don't remember. Wow. Must not have been a very good movie. That was a long time ago. Nine to five. Yeah, that was it.

I love that movie. I did watch that the other night though in full. That's so good. That was one of the songs that I sang at Piano Karaoke. Nine to five? Nine to five. A couple of Dolly songs sang that. You mean I sang Alice in the Stream?

Oh, well, did she do the Kenny Rogers part and you did the Dolly part? We just switched it up a little, yeah. No, nine to five is a very hard song to sing, by the way. And that movie holds up, man. It's still very funny. Yeah. The great Dabney Coleman. Great Lily Tomlin.

The great Dolly Parton. Great Jane Fonda. The Great Jane Fonda. So good. I did them like, it was just a great shoot. They were best buds and they remained friends all these years later. You can tell. Yeah.

It's kind of neat. All right, so where was I? Oh, yeah. Someone's going to introduce the movie and they're going to get you all excited and like, everyone's glad to be here seeing Owen Wilson's new movie. Right. Everybody reach under your seat for some free red buns. Yeah.

Yeah, you might get a little free something. You never know. And they're going to explain like what you're about to see is going to be a little rough in parts and the effects aren't complete, so just don't take that into account. Right. They're not looking for like, whoa, maybe you should color correct it a little more before you release it. They're aware of that.

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 member is keeping up with the movie and how it's, how it is going, right? Yeah. You're going to, well, you're going to watch the movie just as cleanly as possible and then you're going to have to fill out comment cards. Yeah.

And they're pretty standard, but they can tailor it for the movie. Like, if 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? He's no Owen Wilson. They might ask your favorite parts, your least favorite parts. Yeah.

How was it? How did it flow? Did anything stand out to you as like? Like, could you follow it the whole time? Yeah. Did it make sense? What? What did you think of the jokes?

Yeah. What did 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 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 shlubby like audience. You want to be part of a real focus group? Yeah. And then you follow the stranger to a second location. Yeah. And then you come to a van with a little round window in the back. This has been covered over with a black plastic bag. Yeah.

That got dark. It did. 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 going to get your overall score that they really are going to hone in on. Right.

They want to know that so bad. So bad. Yeah. I definitely would. Yeah. They don't even count that. Yeah. You can say like, oh, yeah, maybe probably.

Nope. So 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 100 people, they will score that. So yeah. Or out of however many people, but for example, out of 100, if 60 people say that, yeah, I guess I would recommend it to a friend and 40 people say that they definitely would.

That movie got a score of 40. Terrible. Not even like a, like you can't even take into account that, yeah, probably. Yeah. 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 caveat to a sliding scale, but anything over 80, they think they're in pretty decent shape.

I would guess 80%, a low B average, which really says a lot less than 80s lately. If you ask me, except of course for Mad Max and X Machina, that was a pretty great movie too. So good. They ask in this article, that makes you wonder, like when you, when a train wreck of a movie comes out, like what happened? Did they focus group it? Did they test screen it?

Did they ignore it? Yeah. Like what, how does that thing get released is the question or are you asking me? Yeah. Well, I mean, no. I'm just throwing it out there. I'm not the one who's been to one of these test screenings. No, it does make you wonder though, like they probably didn't salvageable.

They didn't screen it or the, the people who had 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. Yeah. Apparently human Centipede three has the, I think it came out recently. Is this the one in prison? I don't know. I think it's in prison.

Or are there like hundreds of people, human Centipedes? Yeah. It has the lowest Metacritic score of all time. Really? You saw the first one? Yeah. Have you seen it? No.

Dude. It's definitely worth seeing. Really? Yeah. 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 it's not even appreciating it in an ironic way. Just taking it on its own terms, you're kind of like, it's worth seeing at least once. Like campy disturbing or yeah, okay. But not, not like, not like hostile campy disturbing. Have you seen hostile? Yeah. I didn't think that was very campy.

It was just straight up disturbing. This one already disturbing. Yeah. The guy was definitely going for an arty bit despite the premise of the movie. All right. 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 campy disturbing? Give me an example of that. Oh, I think like a reanimator type of thing. Oh, yeah. Okay. I see. Yeah. Hostiles not campy disturbing.

No. Reanimator definitely is. 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 3 allegedly and ran in there and 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? Yeah. That totally negates the purpose of an audience screening. Right. Because everyone there, I'm sure there were a few people who were like, oh, I hate your

guts, you weirdo. But the rest of the people are like, oh my God, Tom Cruise just came into the very test screening. Yeah. And like, they probably didn't feel good about writing negative comments. Right. You know? He might still be here.

He might want to 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. Oh, by the way, also there is a really interesting long form article in LA Weekly from about a year ago called How YouTube and Internet Journalism Destroyed Tom Cruise Our Last Real Movie

Star. And it's not an apologist's view, but it definitely defends him against a lot of, it's just read it. I'm still a fan of his acting in most cases, like that Edge of Tomorrow movie was terrific. Yeah. I haven't seen it yet. I've heard nothing but good things about it. Yeah.

It was really good. I've seen a lot of movies and separate that from the wacko in real life. This is, yes, this is defending his acting as well, but it's defending that public perception of him as being a wacko. Yeah. I can read that. And it basically really kind of pulls apart all the layers and you're like, oh yeah, 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 lengths to point out that that is not the same thing, it's just offhandedly saying, oh yeah, he jumped up and down on that couch, like he was crazy. Yeah. Now 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 kicked 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 Tom Cruise, but just more to be like everybody put your knives away. Well, I think the knives are out, 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 makes you kind of not a good person, you know? Yeah.

I see what you mean. Like that's beyond like, oh, that's just a strange religion. That's like, people are being paid 15 cents 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. What was the, what's the name of the, was it an HBO documentary? Going Clear.

Going Clear. Yeah. Based on the book, Going Clear. I saw the guy who wrote the book Come Speak. Oh, really? That guy. Alex something, I don't remember his name, but like, I mean, whatever you think of his book or his journalism, that guy had brass ones.

Oh, really? He's the one who did it. He's the one who went after Scientology when no one else would touch him. He's the guy who did. And apparently, five million lawyers 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. Yeah.

And this is after it had already been vetted by all of the lawyers in the book publishing world. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. The great book. All right. Let's take another break here.

And when we come back, we'll talk about some of the more famous examples of movies that have been changed due to audience screenings. It's gonna be so good. Hey, everybody, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren and Nova Scotia, who realized she could Airbnb her cozy backyard treehouse and the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel.

So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Mangesh Atikulur and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look

for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. The situation doesn't look good, there is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too.

Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, there's some 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 a test audience suggested it be taken out somewhere over the rainbow. Apparently, also very famously, James Bond's movie, License to Kill, was originally called License Revoked. And even after all the promotional 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 revoked. And they were serious. Yeah. So they changed it. It sounds like a Queen Latifah comedy license, you know, like where she's a sassy school bus driver. Right.

And the K and the R are backwards or something like that in the poster. Yeah, absolutely. She's a sassy bus driver. Pretty woman. The movie, the saccharine feel good movie from Richard Geer and Julia Roberts. Apparently not started out as saccharine. No. This is hysterical to me.

It was originally titled 3000 based on the amount of money it cost to hire a hooker for a week. Sure that one like made no sense. Yeah. Apparently they changed the name not because of the test audience because the execs were like, it sounds too science fictiony. And they were right. They were right.

Pretty woman. It's a much better title for that movie. And then apparently it had a lot darker edge when it was in script form. And it ended with Richard Geer's character kicking Julia Roberts character out of his car and driving away. That's how it ended. Not very rom-com-y. No.

No, it wasn't a rom-com. No, it was Gary Marshall. But see what I want to know is. Gary Marshall. He's a rom-com-y director. No, that's what I'm saying. He made that. Like what I want to know.

It seems to me like all that would have changed with Gary Marshall, not like in test screenings. Yes. I think that's what happened. And then what the test audience, the hand they played was that they're like, you need to change that ending. Okay. Got you. They need to get together.

Right. Fatal Attraction famously changed. Yeah. So the ending of Fatal Attraction apparently has Glenn Close, who's Michael Douglas is his former one night stand turned stalker, killing herself, slitting her own throat. Yeah. Pretty good. With a knife with Michael Douglas' fingerprints on it, and then Michael Douglas is arrested

for her murder. Yeah. And like it's supposed to, they don't show trials and things, but like ends with him going to prison. Yeah. 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. Yeah. And just for good measure, make it the wife. Well that makes sense because I think people, people weren't rooting for Michael Douglas in that movie either because he was such a jerk. Right.

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 Ann Archer, is the one who does it. Right. And it was effective. Yeah. But apparently Glenn Close was like the original ending was way better. She washed her hands of it.

Did you ever see Scott Pilgrim versus the world? No. And I'm, I like Michael Sierra. It's a good flick. The original ending of that one had him, had his character ending up with his, his love interest 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 and pining for this other girl and defeating her evil

ex-boyfriends. Right. He can't just not end up with her at the end is very anticlimactic. So they said, all right, we'll change it. And that's how it was in the graphic novel too. So I don't know why they changed it to begin with. Who knows. So they went back to the original ending that it was, of the material was adapted from.

That's right. Yeah. Pretty in 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 Crier. Yeah.

With Ducky. Rather than Blaine Andrew McCarthy, which by the way, it's all weekend at Bernie's again recently hits a, no, it's not that bad. Really? Yeah. It's very thin. It's one extended joke. Yeah.

But boy, they take it in so many directions. Yeah. It's pretty funny. And it's amazing how young Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy look. I mean, young. Yeah. And the guy who played Bernie who's like, I don't think ever did anything else. No.

I never saw him do anything else. He threw out the ball at like a Los Angeles Dodgers game or San Francisco Giants game or something like that. In 1987? Yeah. Interesting. 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. Do you know what would have been genius if they would have had Silverman and McCarthy out there like grabbing his arm and throwing the ball for him as if he were dead? It would have been great. That would have been pretty good. I think they call that meta these days.

Yeah. They do. Or meta is already out. That was like so two years ago. You know, 28 days later, you saw that one, right? Yeah. That one ends with Jim's, Silly and Murphy's character dying in the original ending and his people were going to rescue him just like going back out to fight the zombies again.

Right. And all these days were like, no, that stinks. I love this guy. Yeah, so he recovers. Yeah. Doesn't it end in like a field or a meadow or something like that? They're like romping in the field and I think they see a plane. I'm sure Danny Boe was like, oh, you want a happy ending?

Yeah. I'll give you your happy stupid ending. Here's your stupid ending. Choke on it, you stupid audience. I like the ending though. 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 undark beginnings like with 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. It's 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 corpses in the morgue explaining how he got there. Oh, wow. And audiences were like, is this a comedy? Like what is going on here?

Apparently 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 legend goes that she told him to his face like this is terrible. It's a steaming pile. He reshot the beginning to where it's Bill Holden's corpse, but it's a voiceover and 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 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 that is a great movie.

I need to see that. I love Billy Wilder. You should watch it like tonight. Doesn't matter the mood you're in, it doesn't matter what you got going on, just you could watch Sunset Boulevard and be like, this is a great movie. Okay. Did you see Hethers? Did you see Hethers?

Mm-hmm. The regular ending, oh, I'm sorry, the, yeah, the ending they went with was Christian Slater's character wants to blow up the school gymnasium during a basketball game. And Veronica, what's her face is, one on a writer's character shoots him dead, stops it and ends up bonding with the outcast girl. Yes. And in the original ending and the script, I don't think this was an, I don't think it was shot, but 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 geeks are all like living in harmony. Huh. Yeah. Not bad. You're like, yeah, I can see that. Blade Runner, perhaps the most famous changed ending of all time. I had 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. What was that ending? Basically that Harrison Ford is going to die. Well, that Rachael Ward is going to die because replicants have expiration dates and is Harrison Ford a replicant or not? Oh, it leaves it open.

I'm pretty sure the director's cut leaves it ambiguous. Even though I think Ridley Scott came out years later and said, yeah, he is a replicant. So in the audience tested version, he turns to the camera and says directly to the audience, nope, I'm 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 infamous blue sky shot. The only blue sky in the whole movie was them like driving down the road at the end and

explaining via voiceover that, well, not all replicants have an expiration date. You're special. So you don't have one. Wow. So we can just live together in harmony. And Phillip K. Dick rollover in his grave, probably so. But that shot of the only blue sky wasn't even from that movie. It was pulled from outtakes of the shining, the beginning of the car scene and the shining

when they're driving up the road. Wow. So. Wow. So he screwed that one up and really Scott of course was, he was not so happy about that. I can imagine he makes this masterpiece and then somebody tax on outtakes from the shining. Yeah. Weird.

Bad. You got anything else? Nope. Okay. 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 were ever in a line at a movie theater and somebody trustworthy, seeming comes up to you and asks you if you want to be in a

test audience, give it a shot. Yeah. And big thanks to mental floss for all the, a lot of that list stuff came from one of their articles. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's all I got. And if you want to know more about audience testing, type those words in the search bar

at howstuffworks.com. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this oceans are cool if I pay attention. Hey guys, love the show. I used to listen every day when I rode the trains from Brooklyn into Manhattan to work. But recently I started to work in Brooklyn, close enough for me to bike to so I don't ride trains anymore. And there are pros and cons to that.

On one hand, I save over $110 a month in metro card fees, don't have to wait for trains, which adds another 20 minutes to the Google map travel times. On the downside, when it rains, I still have to bike to work, although I am learning to love that. The other thing I really like about this show 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 down to 15 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. It wasn't long before I knew I'd miss something critical. At some point, riptides were defined and laddered up to equatorial winds, a connection I recall 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. And that is from Andrew Negrosh, N-I-G-R-O-S-H, Negrosh, Negrosh. 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 it's getting a new job that requires you to go on the train. It's further away. Yeah. Go work in Vermont. Yeah. There you go. Problem solved.

If you have a problem that you want Chuck and I 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.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com and as always join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe.

You can find in major league baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. From the podcast, HeyDude the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of

the cult classic show HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to HeyDude the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.