It's time to blame MKT
I knew that day would come, the day when a test audience would abort a movie. Spike Jonze is near to rewrite, reshoot, recast, restart an entire 70m-budget movie because the screening said that Where the Wild Things Are will not be another Harry Potter.
Kubrick hated screenings but acknowledged that they are necessary, that you only understand the real impact with a audience. But what's happening to Jonze is unreal, to remake a movie he just shot?! Screenings should be used to map distribution, to create communication strategy, to define a public for the film, and not... to define a movie for the public.
Under contract, Clint Eastwood doesn’t allow test screenings for his movies. And I don't think that's because he disagrees Kubrick, but because he must know the hysterical bubbles of speculation that arise and burst from these screenings.
The critical review from a screening is something like: the movie is slow (47%), confusing (35%) and depressing (18%), fix it. And there is more stupidity yet, a marketing paradox in the screenings: the generic test audience doesn't know what they are going to get. Is something like 'close your eyes and open your mouth' to test a cheesy puff when the girl thought in a bubblegum. She will hate it, it can be Prima Donna, she'll spit it. Is not by chance that only bubblegums survive the screenings (80/20 Law).
But aside this paradox, a test screening tries to give the generic audience what they want. And this leaves everyone that isn't 'generic audience' outside of the game. "Oh, my balls" is the future of the mainstream cinema if this lack of freedom continues. Cinema will not be special for anyone, it will be just... generic.
Jonze probably will not use Jim Henson puppets into his movie anymore. It will be a friendly CG like a cartoon to taste more like a bubblegum. Kids in this ridiculous endless protection to not be scared, depressed, with doubts or pain will be defenseless in a hostile environment (aka school), it's when their fathers decide to say 'he's not a kid anymore'. Jonze is the right guy to give us a movie about losing the innocence, because only nixon can go to china. No other director is more cynical than him to do this.
Here's an old test Jonze made with a Jim Henson puppet for the movie ∇
Labels: marketing, Spike Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are
