# Rude Awakenings At Major Movie Premieres **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 8, 2014, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-awakenings-at-major-movie-premieres/678259 "2014-01-08T07:22:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-awakenings-at-major-movie-premieres/678259/21 "2014-01-08T22:00:06Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Agreed. Any movie today which is going to have a big gala premiere will almost undoubtedly have been shown to test audiences, and likely will have been tinkered with if the test showings went poorly. I can’t see a director or producer being caught flat-footed by a bad audience reaction at the premiere, unless they’re truly in denial. Yes and no… I expect everyone involved in making \*\*\*The Wild, Wild West \*\*\* knew it wasn’t very good, but it was being released at the start of the summer and had a popular star… so the reasoning was, “Give it a big release and a lot of promotion, and we may get a few big opening weekends out of it before word of mouth kills it off.” There are a lot of movies like that- movies that, if marketed well and released at the right time COULD rake in 50 or even 100 million before circling the drain. Even if that isn’t enough to make the movie profitable, it could avert disaster, turning an utter bomb into a mere disappointment. And that’s important- a disappointment can be overcome, but a bomb can kill careers. Will Smith and Barry Sonnenfeld got to make more movies, after all. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-awakenings-at-major-movie-premieres/678259/22 "2014-01-08T22:42:38Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Yes and no… I expect everyone involved in making \*\*\*The Wild, Wild West \*\*\* knew it wasn’t very good, but it was being released at the start of the summer and had a popular star… so the reasoning was, “Give it a big release and a lot of promotion, and we may get a few big opening weekends out of it before word of mouth kills it off.” True enough, and we know this happens all the time – any time you see a note in the Movies section of your Friday paper which says, “this film was not available for previews”, you know that that’s exactly what’s happening. But, in these cases, as you say, the crew knows that it’s a stinker; at that point, it’s a matter of seeing how much money they can milk out of it. What the OP was asking about would be a very different situation, in which the crew thinks that they have a winner on their hands, and are surprised by the bad reaction at the premiere. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-awakenings-at-major-movie-premieres/678259/23 "2014-01-09T03:55:08Z")
Do you remember Saturn 3, with Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett? I saw that at a pre-release preview – they hadn’t put in the main title music yet. There were a lot of bigwigs there, studio execs and the like. After the showing, I walked up to a group of suits and said, “Gentlemen, that movie stank.” They nodded sadly in agreement. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-awakenings-at-major-movie-premieres/678259/24 "2014-01-09T04:08:43Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Do you remember Saturn 3, with Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett? > > I saw that at a pre-release preview – they hadn’t put in the main title music yet. There were a lot of bigwigs there, studio execs and the like. > > After the showing, I walked up to a group of suits and said, “Gentlemen, that movie stank.” > > They nodded sadly in agreement. I saw The Lost World from Spielberg at a preview. I was pumped and expected to love it. You could feel the vibe in the audience as the movie continued. It sucked, we all knew it sucked, and everyone from any studio must have sensed we knew it. Mild heckling and open, loud laughing began. It was awkward and hilarious. However, not a premiere. That would be much worse. ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Jocko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncle_jocko/32/2932_2.png) [@Uncle\_Jocko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Jocko)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-awakenings-at-major-movie-premieres/678259/25 "2014-01-10T17:23:43Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Yes and no… I expect everyone involved in making \*\*\*The Wild, Wild West \*\*\* knew it wasn’t very good, but it was being released at the start of the summer and had a popular star… so the reasoning was, “Give it a big release and a lot of promotion, and we may get a few big opening weekends out of it before word of mouth kills it off.” You could actually tell Kevin Kline knew the movie wasn’t very good _while he was filming his scenes_. I love Kline, think he’s a fantastic actor, but that was one of the most phoned-in performances of all time. I can’t decide whether this or Ed Norton in _ **The Italian Job** _ was the most obvious “I showed up and learned my lines, give me my check now” acting job I’ve seen from a good actor. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-awakenings-at-major-movie-premieres/678259/26 "2014-01-11T01:17:28Z")
**Uncle Jocko** : one of the reasons I adore “Murder by Death” was that the actors were all obviously having the time of their lives during filming! You can just see them radiating laughter and glee. Sad when it happens the other way around! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-awakenings-at-major-movie-premieres/678259.md?page=1)