10 Great Movies That Had AWFUL Test Screenings

Alex Garland's mesmerising sci-fi masterpiece Annihilation may have been widely embraced by critics, but it ultimately flopped at the box office - an outcome Paramount absolutely knew was coming following poor test screenings.

These screenings indicated to producer and financier David Ellison that the film was ultimately "too intellectual" and "too complicated," prompting him to request that Garland make changes to it before release, such as altering the ending and reworking the portrayal of Natalie Portman's protagonist Lena.

But thankfully Garland had an ace up his sleeve - co-producer Scott Rudin, who had final cut privilege on the film and went to bat for Garland, refusing to take notes from Ellison at all.

The behind-the-scenes squabbling did nevertheless prompt Paramount to sell the film's international rights to Netflix, ensuring that in order to mitigate a bomb-in-the-making, it was only theatrically released in the United States, Canada, and China.

So while most of the world sadly didn't get to watch Annihilation on the big screen as God intended, they did get to see Garland's untarnished cut. That's surely a worthwhile trade-off long-term.

As for Garland, whose prior film Ex Machina also tested poorly - though proved a modest commercial success and won an Oscar - he said that he "couldn't give a f**k" about the test screening process.