User blog:Paul.rea/Teen Wolf News 041217

Teen Wolf News 041217

‘American Assassin’ Dylan O’Brien Faces Test Screening
An audience in California will get a first look at Dylan O'Brien’s first truly “adult” role this week. American Assassin from CBS Films and Lionsgate faces a test screening at a multiplex in Long Beach on Thursday. They’re recruiting an audience between the ages of 17 and 59 for a single showing of the spy thriller. This small group of moviegoers could determine a lot. Test audiences can alter how widely a studio releases a film and can even bring dead characters back to life.

Test Screenings Change the World
Imagine a world in which ET died, or Richard Gere left Julia Roberts at the end of Pretty Woman. Those endings might have come to pass if not for the feedback of test audiences. All studios conduct test screenings of their movies, mostly through a process of recruiting people in areas outside of Los Angeles. The audience is shown the movie and asked to rate it on a scale of excellent, very good, good, fair, and poor. Follow-up questionnaires and discussions then flesh out what the audience liked or didn’t and whether or not audience members would recommend the movie or not. Hollywood has a love/hate relationship with the idea that that creators should listen to real people when it comes to moviemaking. In some cases - like ET and Pretty Woman – the test audience is right, and the movies benefit from the input. The other side of that coin could be a problem for O’Brien and American Assassin. If the studio is even slightly uncomfortable with the picture’s prospects, test audience feedback could send overzealous executives into a frenzy of cuts, rewrites, and reshoots that could kill the movie.

The land of over-tested and over-adjusted films is littered with well-known titles. Blade Runner was extensively reworked and had a burdensome narration track added because test audiences in the early 80s were “confused.” In I Am Legend, Will Smith was supposed to be the villain in the end, while the vampire-things were actually just trying to rescue a friend. It was the whole point of the story that Smith was running around hurting these “people” for no reason. The new, audience-tested ending negated all the carefully-plotted foreshadowing that the vamps were intelligent and not at all evil.

What Could Go Wrong?
The test audience for American Assassin may not have that much power, but there are some troubling signs that a few dozen people in Long Beach and other screenings could change the picture significantly.
 * Lionsgate scheduled this test a full five months before the film is to debut. It appears the studio wants enough time to “fix” the movie based on audience feedback. Rogue One shot an additional four weeks after initial test screenings and turned out great. With the Keanu Reeves bomb 47 Ronin, filmmakers went back in to add more footage of Reeves and destroyed the picture.


 * We don’t know just how much faith the studio has in director Michael Cuesta. His first feature, L.I.E., is a brilliant study of a controversial subject. His television work is equally good, but CBS Films is looking to launch a multi-picture franchise, and American Assassin must be a hit for that to happen. With so much riding on the outcome, it’s unclear just how much weight Cuesta will have when it comes to the final product.


 * The studio doesn’t seem to know just who makes up their target audience for American Assassin. Note that the flyer above places a lower age limit of 17 on the screening with an upper limit of 59. That's a very wide target and suggests they could be looking at an R rating in the US. If the film doesn’t test well within the older demographics, they might decide to soften it and lower the rating to attract more of O’Brien’s built-in core audience of young adults and teens. They could also go in the opposite direction - beef up Michael Keaton’s part - to draw a larger share of older moviegoers.

Of course, this week’s test audience for American Assassin may love the picture just the way it is. That happened with a recent test screening of the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel. It hit a perfect 100 score with “excellent” across the board in all responses. That’s apparently never happened before, and most studios would consider anything in the high 70s or above as a win. If O'Brien's film comes in below 75, the studio will likely get antsy and look to make changes.

'Teen Wolf' Final Edit Begins

While MTV still won’t say when they’ll begin airing new episodes of Teen Wolf, the final chapter of the show is in the final stages of preparation. Executive Producer Jeff Davis says, “Just editing, sound mixing and CGI,” remain before all work ceases on the last ten episodes.

Part of the post-production process saw some actors return to work briefly this week. Instead of stepping in front of a camera, they were behind a microphone. Additional dialogue recording or ADR is just what it says on the tin. Actors enter a recording studio and overlay their voice onto already-filmed scenes. Sometimes this is just to clear up something that might be hard to understand. Other times, the dialogue has to be worked into a scene in a different way due to changes in editing.

This finishing process would have been a bit more rushed under the original Season 6b schedule. MTV had planned to run the final ten episodes starting in March, but new President Chris McCarthy wanted to keep the show around a while longer. Currently, the network says Teen Wolf returns in “summer,” but won’t specify a month for the debut.

Hoechlin Returns to Supergirl

Superman is back in National City visiting his cousin in the Supergirl finale set for this spring on The CW. Tyler Hoechlin will be back in the super-booty enhancing tights in the coming days to film the episode in Vancouver. When Supergirl producers initially negotiated with Warner Bros to use the character, he was only supposed to appear in two episodes. It seems that restriction is no longer in force or they managed to get the PTB at WB to loosen their hold on the character.

Hoechlin debuted in the show’s second season to rave reviews. He brought back a sense of fun to the role after years of haunted and morose portrayals by other actors in Superman films. Supergirl returns with new episodes on April 24. Superman returns in the season finale on May 22.

Melissa Ponzio: Sexy

<p class="MsoNormal">We got a new look at actor Melissa Ponzio this week through the lens of one of her Teen Wolf co-stars. It appears Ponzio and Claire Bryétt Andrew (Sydney) wandered into the woods of southern California and captured some spectacular shots of television’s favorite sexy mom.

<p class="MsoNormal">You can see more of these images at Andrew’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/clairebryettphotography/