Back when internet was something we hadn’t even seen in movies, my home town was often used for “sneak openings”. Movies would be shown there normally, but before any kind of publicity campaign, partly in order to decide whether such a campaign was warranted, how many copies to make, etc.
It was kind of weird in that being a small town we would normally expect to see movies after they’d been taken off theaters in the largest towns, but a few times a year there would be some movie we got before everybody else.
I saw a special prescreening of The Crow. I believe the director (or some high mucky muck) was there introducing. I think it was the very first showing (why in Phoenix I don’t know, but that was my impression). Whoever it was introduced the film.
I saw test screenings of Miami Rhapsody and Flight of the Navigator. The first didn’t have any changes when it reached general release, but I think they completely redid the alien ship voice between the preview and general release. I thought the original was better, but there’s no way to know any more.
When I lived in LA, I attended five test screening of TV shows at The Preview House. And despite my best efforts, they all ended up on TV.
I saw a sneak preview of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles back in college. No questionnaires that I can recall, they just showed a rough cut of the movie. (I remember seeing the boom mic in a lot of shots.)
And if Cal Meacham hadn’t mentioned it, I would have forgotten that I also saw one for The Little Drummer Girl.
I worked for a theater chain in the '80s and did a couple of things like that. In either 1982 or 1983, I went to a sneak preview where nobody knew going in what movie we were going to see. It turned out to be Blue Thunder. (It was officially released in May '83.)
I’m not sure if there was a questionnaire or not, but I do remember a scene in which Candy Clark drove her car up on two wheels to fit down a narrow alley and escape some bad guys. This generated laughter from the audience, and that shot was not in the final cut of the film.
Then, in 1987, when I was in management, I got to go to a function hosted by Orion Pictures. They gave us lunch and booze, and showed us rough cuts of two upcoming releases: Throw Momma From the Train (which I quite enjoyed), and The Couch Trip (not so much). The main thing I remember is that the scores were not complete and there were no title sequences or closing credits. In the case of “Throw Momma,” I don’t think the final film turned out very different (if at all) from what I saw. Never watched “Couch Trip” again though.
I went to a couple of test screenings. The one I remember was Freeway (1996). The screening was better than the release version. In the courtroom scene where Reese Witherspoon confronts Kiefer Sutherland, she was totally laughing at him. They seriously trimmed that for the release version. I thought it was great.
Other people didn’t think so. I heard someone say, ‘That’s not right, laughing at a disabled person!’ :rolleyes: I know it was Santa Monica, but you’d think people would know he’s the bad guy.
I went to an early cut of “American Pie” in college. There were still microphone booms, etc. in some of the scenes. It was much raunchier (But no nudity?) and 100x better than the version released to the public 2 months later.
When in middle school, a friend won tickets to a sneak preview of The Wall from a radio station and took me.
The passed out foam bricks and Pink Floyd bumper stickers, and the DJ from the station talked for a while before they rolled the movie.
I don’t recall any specific about the movie being different from what is now thew official version, I was too young.
I have seen several and am about to see another! I just got myself 2 passes to see Alita: Battle Angel on 31 January! The film doesn’t actually open until 14 February, so this sneak preview has two things going for it: 1) it’s 2 weeks early and b) it’s free!
ETA: There are previews of this in like 31 cities; all you have to do is ask for the tickets, if anyone else is interested in this movie.
In 1975 I went to a preview showing of Tommy at the Century 21 Dome Theater. It was supposed to be an exclusive screeing for KOME* contest winners. but I just happened to know the assistant manager of the theater, he let me in 30 minutes before anyone else.
I’m sitting there in the dark, waiting for the crowd to arrive, and suddenly the screen comes alive with the final minute of the film, the sound system cranked. Wow. Kind of weird being the first person to see just the end of a movie.
A few minutes later the KOME* DJs came in with the contest winners. They were a bit non plussed to see someone sitting in the best seat of the house, but there wasn’t much they could do about it.
*might have been KSJO
I saw Jurassic Park: The Lost World(Jurrasic Park 2) about 3-4 weeks early at a sneak preview in the Detroit area. No idea how it ended up showing there so early, but we heard about it and were excited, so we went. It was a one night, one or two screenings only experience. We just showed up, paid regular price, and were let in. How different was 1997? They didn’t talk about non-disclosure and they did not tell us to avoid going online to talk about it. They just let us in and we watched it and left like any other movie.
My only real early screening and honestly, we all looked at each other half-way through and began whispering about how disappointing it was. We left thinking it was pretty bad and how everyone else would not realize how bad it is for a few more weeks.
I guess it hasn’t earned the same bad reputation as Phantom Menace or other movie sequels/prequels since then. It isn’t as bad as many other sequels, but it is pretty disappointing since the first JP is still an excellent movie.
Only once for me. It was either Analyze This or its sequel Analyze That. I Saw both in the theaters, I just don’t recall which was paid for and which was the sneak preview ticket.
I got tickets to an advanced screening of the Will Smith/Kevin Kline steampunk comedy Wild Wild West. The place was packed and a friend of mine, who I also invited but who was late to the theater, only got in because I sweet-talked one of the security guards. I think there were short audience-response cards we were asked to fill out at the end. I know the movie had almost nothing to do with the TV series, and yes, it was over the top and silly, but I have to say I enjoyed it.
We had a pretty popular film discussion group in Knoxville, TN - corporate headquarters to Regal Cinemas - and were able to get advanced tickets to sneak previews, audience test screenings, and such. Our most memorable was seeing Jessica Alba and Dane Cook (remember them?) when they debuted Good Luck Chuck. Highlight of the evening was watching billionaire Jim Haslam (then Mayor of Knoxville, now Governor of Tennessee) take his young teenage daughters into the movie… and then watching his wife march them out about 20 minutes in, never to return.
I was a projectionist at a multiplex in the late 80s, and when Batman came out everyone at work couldn’t wait to see the movie.
When the film was delivered on the Thursday night before release day, I did an unusually fast job of “building the print” from its component parts (they were delivered on 20 minute reels that were then spliced together into one complete film).
After all of our regular shows had ended and we closed for the evening, the whole crew stayed late to watch Batman…before the rest of the world got to see it.
I think the movie ended at 3am, thus making it somewhat painful to get up for my day job the next day.
The one test screening I went to was for the movie Picture Perfect with Jennifer Aniston. It seemed to be pretty much the finished product. I don’t recall seeing the real movie close enough to remember any differences. I do remember that the music was very generic.
Standard operating procedure was to run every print after buildup, we learned the hard way that lab splices were not to be trusted, and run times were fictional.
The great joy came on weeks with five or six print changes–the only good part was we were located in the same city as our local print exchange, and I could start getting prints on Tuesday for my minions to put together.
Today, of course, things are vastly different. Hard drives weigh far less than a pair of 4 reel cans. (figure film and cans at about a pound a minute)
Yes, not many movies are made in the Kansas City area but there was one called CSA.
They had a “preview” of sorts. The movie was not totally complete but they showed it to a small audience and had all the cast and crew. Afterwards they took questions. It was kind of fun to hear how they worked thru the process.
I went to a test screening of “Fury Road.” I wrote “MORE Nicholas Hoult” as my main feedback. Lo and behold when it came out! There was more Nicholas Hoult. You’re welcome, everyone!
I went with a group and we were split into two groups and put in two different theaters. We saw slightly different cuts of the movie we discovered when talking about some of the action set pieces. I remember specifically the “Buzzard” attack- the guys with the spiky cars and motorbikes, what we saw was much shorter then the other cut–the other cut was what was in the theatrical cut I assume since it had scenes I didn’t see originally.
I remember showing up for a sneak preview that we were led to believe was going to be the Maguire Spiderman…but it ended up being for…I think… Pluto Nash? We left.
