The title says it all. I seem to remember Star Wars was not.
So?
Of course Star Wars was pre-screened for critics. The movie had reviews out the day after opening and got raves from them (the NY Times had an article out the next morning, and judging by that lead time, it’s seems likely Vincent Canby wrote the review before the actual opening. There’s also a second article discussing how the movie was made; you don’t write features like that without having some idea that they will be successful) . Fox knew they had a hit on their hands, and back then you didn’t get a hit unless the critics loved it.
It’s possible that The Stunt Man wasn’t pre-screened: the studio figured it would fail and was going to put it on the shelf. Richard Rush got them to put it into a theater, where word-of-mouth made it enough of a success that it got wide release. That’s when the reviews came in.
Here is a very incomplete list.
Only Psycho is a great movie on that list, and I would guess it wasn’t screened because of its spoiler.
Having said that, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is a pretty good movie.
Fairly hefty list at TV Tropes includes the 1998 The Avengers, Snakes on a Plane, and Superman IV.
I forgot to link to my list, but TV Tropes has a better one that has already been linked to.
Those are “great films”??
None of the films on the TV Tropes list are great films, after all they all illustrate the trope -“Not screened for critics = suck”.
Really? Dear lord was that a terrible movie.
Psycho isn’t great? :dubious:
You don’t get your money’s worth of the star.
No, I saw the terrible one. The one with crossbows that were indistinguishable from AR-15s.
It appears that the only decent movie there is Double Rush. I haven’t seen it myself, but I think it got OK reviews.
Premium Rush, you mean? I’ve seen about a dozen of the movies from that link, and Premium Rush is by far the best of those. That said, I’d file it under “painless but forgettable,” as opposed to “actually good.”
Yeah, Premium Rush. It definitely wasn’t Double Rush.