I went to a test screening a while back for ‘Woman in the Window’ starring Amy Adams.Loved the film, thought it was a really neat mystery. Seemed like the kind of film to get a solid 80% on rottentomatoes. Reznor and Ross score was badass. My only problem with the film was that the ending was a bit confusing, but it was nothing major. I just asked around a bit at the end of the screening, people helped me understand, and all was well!Then the news of delays. Then the news of more reshoots because test screening audiences were ‘confused’ at the ending.As someone who wrote that I found the ending a bit confusing when I first watched it I thought, oh no…it was a bit confusing sure, but the movie itself was really good…why would they want to reshoot things? I’ve seen plenty of movies that leave me a bit confused, that’s not inherently a BAD thing.So I wait, I wait, I wait…and find out it’s being released on Netflix. Woohoo! I turn on the film recently to see what changes they made…And this new film…sucks.Gone is the Reznor and Ross score that made it feel like a Fincher film. Included is many new scenes, including a hilariously cheesy scene at the end in a hospital room where Brian Tyree Henry is repeating ‘you were right, we were wrong’ which I guess is the studio trying to simplify the movie for audiences. They remove scenes that made Wyatt Russels antagonism towards Amy Adam’s make sense. The whole thing is cut up and spit out into a film that I don’t recognize from what I saw.You can tell a director isn’t proud of their film when they do no press for it.Joe Carnahan did absolutely 0 press for Cop Shop, which Frank Grillo later revealed had executives meddling behind the scenes.Joe Wright did absolutely 0 press for Woman in the Window.Tracy Letts, the screenwriter, said of the reshoot news: “I felt we made the movie we set out to make, so I’m a little confused by that”Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross would be forced to drop out after composing an entire score for the movie. Reznor would say: “It’s frustrating when you did that much work and it’s gone. And we were proud- and they were proud- of the movie that it was”This is all for me to say: there is a really good version of this movie that I saw, that none of you will ever see. It wasn’t gonna win Oscars, but it was a damn good murder mystery. Yes, the ending was slightly confusing, but not enough to reshoot and re-edit the whole movie.Test screening audiences should be taken with a grain of salt. They panicked in seeing everyone was confused at the ending, and they ended up ruining the film. Halloween Kills reportedly received ‘rave scores’ and was said to be far superior to the first, and low and behold the film is divisive amongst fans and generally disliked by critics.Studios need to trust filmmakers more to go with their gut on these things. Leigh Whannell said he received notes from test screenings of The Invisible Man that people needed to ‘see more’ of the antagonist abusing his wife(in the film you see nothing, you just know he’s abusive). He said: “I just didn’t want to write that scene where it’s like “you call these dishes clean woman?” Whack I’m never going to be able to write a scene that will make Adrian as scary as the audience can make him.”I’m writing this because I think it’s fascinating how a really solid, good movie is now lost forever because a studio overreacted to poor test screenings. I wonder how many other good movies over the years were butchered in post, lost in time never to be seen again? via /r/movies https://ift.tt/3C9KnMu
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