Free Which Lie Did I Tell? by William Goldman Page B

laughs.
    Example: the movie opened with these words:
    Not that it matters,
but most of what follows is true.
    Got a laugh, so he cut the first words, “Not that it matters, but.” Laugh gone.
    Unlike Jaws, Butch had been a splendid shoot. But there was controversy because my very late great agent,Evarts Ziegler, had secured $400,000 for the screenplay. A lot of money today. Back then, record-shattering. It made all the papers, not just Variety. And a lot of people wondered what the world was coming to, a western selling for that.
    It’s my belief that the reason the reviews were so shitty is because of the money I got. A lot of people were pissed, a lot of those people were critics. For them the title of the movie really turned out to be this: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid $400,000.
    All the New York and national magazine reviews were mixed to terrible. You could not have reprinted one in its entirety. The reviews in the rest of the country were terrific, and in the rest of the world we soared. But I had no idea of any of that as I sat in another large theater in New York for the first major screening. A similar audience to the Jaws gathering.
    And Butch just died.
    No one left, but no one laughed either. Or was moved. Just a bunch of opinion makers sitting on their hands, and as I fled up the aisle all I heard were remarks about why would anybody open a western in late September, and would Redford be a star, and would the movie make money, and why would anybody pay that much for a screenplay in the first place.
    I didn’t see the movie for years after that. I went during one of its reissues—they did that in those days—and by that time the movie had become sort of the Forrest Gump of its day, in terms of audience reaction, anyway, and I sat happily munching my popcorn as the audience muttered, “Who are those guys?” along with Redford and Newman.
    Way better time was had by all.
    Going from glorious to crushing to sheer horror, the worst I ever saw was when I was a judge at Cannes and I saw this movie at night when you had to get all dressed up in your tuxedo and it started late, I want to say after ten, and it turned out to be an opera—in Portuguese, yet—and all the creative people were there, hopeful, nervous, and the lights went down in that greatest of all movie palaces, and once the audience ascertained they were going to be sung to and it was dinnertime, well, they fled. A thousand fled.
    We didn’t have that many people at our sneak for Comet in Sherman Oaks. It was at a mall, and the theater held a flat five hundred.
    For those of you who don’t know, here is what generally happens today at test sneaks.
    The audience comes in. They have been recruited by whatever company is running things. And usually the people selected are moviegoers who have been to this kind of story before.
    They sit down and get comfortable.
    Somebody from thefocus group goes to the front and greets them, thanks them for their help. Then the usual excuse about the quality of what they will be seeing: there are no credits, the print is scratchy, etc., etc. Then the test leader asks them a favor—when the movie is done will they all please stay in their seats and fill out a short survey.
    A focus group of twenty-five or so has already been selected and will stay after the theater is empty and talk to the group leader, answering more specific questions.
    Final thanks for coming.
    Lights out.
    Magic time.
    And it is exciting. When I’m involved and when I’m not. Because so much is riding on this special evening.
    Not that these groups are without flaw. The highest-rated film I’ve been involved with was The Princess Bride. I was told by the man who runs these things that it was the second highest movie of its year. That would indicate a huge hit, which The Princess Bride was not.
    But these nights, as well as draining you, tell you a lot. Have you got a shot? That’s what you know by the end of the night and your head hits