10 Great Movies That Had AWFUL Test Screenings

There are few filmmakers more acutely aware of how painful the test screening process can be than Terry Gilliam, who famously battled with Universal over the final cut of his 1985 sci-fi film Brazil.

A decade later, Gilliam again found himself unmoored by the whims of test audiences when they saw his sci-fi thriller 12 Monkeys. 

Though during the screening Gilliam actually thought that the audience liked the film, he was in for quite the shock when the feedback cards were returned.

One attendee called the film "one of the worst movies I’ve seen. Herky, jerky, eratic, badly photographed," while another deemed it "just stupid," and most harshly, one suggested, "shoot the writers." Ouch.

Unlike Brazil, these reactions had little impact on the movie, which received only minor tweaks before release, where it received rave reviews, scored two Oscar nominations, and turned a hefty profit at the box office. Basically the best possible outcome, then.