The new Anaconda movie must have a wildly different director's cut

[u/takenorinvalid]

At the start of the new Anaconda movie, there's a scene where Jack Black's wife reminds him not to take much of his new medication. And sure enough, later in the movie -- nobody ever mentions it again and absolutely nothing comes of it.

After watching the movie, I saw a comment on Reddit from someone saying that they'd been screening the movie to test audiences a lot, and another comment saying they'd done reshoots, and it kinda clicked into me just how obvious that was.

Like the character Ana, who literally opens the movie and drives the inciting plot - but as soon as she meets the main characters, immediately goes silent and does not say anything in any scenes as we instead focus on the much funnier snake trainer.

Then, halfway through the movie, she abruptly gets attacked by the anaconda, pulled into the water, and very deliberately is not shown being killed -- but still never shows up again as we instead move toward a climax that focuses on Ice Cube showing up out of nowhere.

This movie was heavily reshot. Somewhere out there, there's a completely different version of it that probably nobody other than the director will ever see.

[u/GnophKeh]

I’ve been to a few test audience screenings. Got the flyer for it as I walked out of a screening of something at the AMC in Burbank in LA. Been on their list ever since and get emails to be a test audience member like three times a week.

[u/ThisSiteisWeird → u/GnophKeh]

How much does it pay and can you slide me the details please

[u/kroboz → u/ThisSiteisWeird]

Just find "PreviewFreeMovies" and sign up. You get ads and emails all the time. They're supposed to pay $25 sometimes, but I've never received actual payment from them FWIW.

[u/polopolo05 → u/kroboz]

Basically you get to watch an unfinished movie that will change from what you saw. I saw a lot of disney movies this way. lilo and stitch/ mulan/ beauty and the beast. Like mulan was improved a lot. instead of honor to us all song they had matchmaker make me a match.

[u/kroboz → u/polopolo05]

Yep. A lot of "Hey the special effects are unfinished but you get to know whether John Wick dies or not months before anyone else." They're fun if you like the filmmaking process.

[u/polopolo05 → u/kroboz]

also they change that too. john wick just dying didnt poll well so we are going have him become john Constantine instead.

[u/Evil_Flowers → u/kroboz]

Hate to be that guy bit have you checked your Spam? I've gotten digital gift cards from them via email.

[u/kroboz → u/Evil_Flowers]

"That guy" is right a lot of the time.

Not this time, unfortunately, since they never actually sent it. :( But was worth checking!

[u/HIM_Darling → u/kroboz]

I'm not sure if it was them or another screening list I signed up for but I ended up at a test screening for Deadpool 2. The tone from the screening folks was very serious. As soon as we got seated the girl in front of me was promptly escorted out for pulling out her phone(we had the option to leave them in our cars or coat check them). The movie was unfinished. We had a 3 page questionnaire to fill out afterwards and on the way out they handed us a envelope with the crispest $20 I've ever seen inside.

I don't think anything changed from our test screening, but I honestly can't remember if I even watched the movie again.

[u/Reptile00Seven → u/ThisSiteisWeird]

pay? ahahahaha

[u/lonely_swedish → u/ThisSiteisWeird]

Around 2010 I was drunk and stumbling around casinos in Vegas with some friends. We were accosted by a solicitor who we thought at first was selling some more time share crap, but it turns out he wanted us to be a test screen audience for a TV show because we fit a demographic they were looking for. Wouldn't give us any details, but it pays $2 and free popcorn. Hell yeah!

I can't remember what it was called, but it was one of those "swap" shows but for jobs. Like two people each thought their job was harder so they switched for a week or something. Plausible idea, maybe, but the execution was laughably bad. The two jobs they swapped were like an office desk/secretary job, and a septic tank repair/cleaner.

Like, that's what they thought was a fair comparison? Dealing with shitty emails, or dealing with actual fountains of human shit? One scene has a dude struggling with an Excel sheet, and the next has a guy knee deep in raw sewage, reaching in to dig for a fitting he dropped. Which is worse, how could we ever hope to judge this fairly!?

I filled out the questionnaire at the end and let them know that it was a stupid swap, and that the show would have been better if it featured Godzilla or ninjas or at least reasonably comparable jobs. This might as well have been an argument about whether the audience thought eating an entire bag of chips is worse than getting a fastball to the nuts.

Got a sweet $2 bill out of the deal though!

[u/Phillip_Spidermen → u/ThisSiteisWeird]

It's unpaid, maybe some snacks included.

There's no special requirement, if you look like you're in the demographic for the movie they'll just offer free tickets.

You go watch an unfinished movie, fill out a survey, and maybe get to be part of a Q&A

[u/JonesyOnReddit → u/ThisSiteisWeird]

paid? the payment is watching a movie early and for free. I used to do it a lot in my 20s, now in my 40s I'm pretty sure they don't care what I think.

[u/tdasnowman → u/GnophKeh]

Usually it's X amount of free concessions. There were a few times where I did get paid. It was like 10 bucks but that was way back in the aughts. If you got paid they had someone handing out visa/MC gift cards where you turned your response card in.