10 Famous Movies Test Audiences Improved With Their Criticism

9. Final Destination

The Final Destination franchise has spawned five moves that have grossed $665 million worldwide. However, based on the original cut of the original 2000 film the filmmakers had no desire to make a hit. In fact, Final Destination was saved from two of the worst endings in horror movie history by test audiences. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmKhYhEOyHc The movie originally ended with Devon Sawa's character Alex dying from electrocution, which came after a love scene between Alex and Ali Larter's character Clear. An epilogue revealed that nine months later Clear gives birth to Alex's son. Test audiences hated this ending and the love story, so another cut was test screened with the sex scene and epilogue cut that instead ended with Alex being brutally decapitated by a crash-landing police helicopter. Test audiences still hated it and it became obvious to the producers that they had to reconsider killing the popular lead character off in the finale of the movie. Though it reportedly cost $2 million to reshoot an ending that killed off Alex's rival Carter instead, test audiences finally approved of it. New Line Cinema later released a special feature on the DVD (which you can watch above) that details the lengthy test screening process and how the opinions of test audiences shaped the final film. It's a fascinating look at how influential test screenings can be.