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Focus Group Ending: Difference between revisions
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This trope is closely related to [[Executive Meddling]].
Subtrope of [[Revised Ending]]. See also [[Democracy Is Bad]] and [[Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup]].
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* ''[[Blade Runner]]'': The original theatrical release featured Deckard and Rachael driving a car to happiness and freedom through lush green hills. This ending is a jarring non sequitur: implausible and theme-negating in a dystopian future-noir film. It's the direct product of a test audience screening. Oddly, the sequence is unused footage from the start of ''[[The Shining]]''.
* ''[[Brazil (film)|Brazil]]'': The omission of the original ending, in which {{spoiler|Lowry's escape was revealed to be a delusion after he broke under torture.}}
* The movie version of the musical ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'' originally retained the [[Downer Ending]] in which Audrey and Seymour are killed and Audrey II begins its spectacular conquest of Earth to the tune of the song "Don't Feed the Plants". This went over so badly with test audiences that much of the final section of the film—from Audrey II trying to eat her onward—was reshot and recut to change things to a happier ending; the original finale had to be jettisoned altogether. This ending was restored in the "[[Director's Cut]]"
* Sam Raimi's ''[[Evil Dead|Army of Darkness]]'' had its original ending (where Ash oversleeps after taking a sleeping potion and awakens in a post-apocalyptic future) changed after negative test audience reaction. A new ending was reshot and used for the theatrical release. Fortunately the new ending was just as silly and awesome as the rest of the movie.
** ''Army of Darkness'' could actually be considered an inversion; the original ending is a jarring [[Downer Ending]], whereas the theatrical ending is closer in tone to the rest of the movie and generally fits better. The fact that this was the last movie in the series and gives Ash a relatively happy ending surely helps.
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* Iranian film ''Taste of Cherry'' by Abbas Kiarostami ends with an idyllic scene featuring the production crew and some assorted others relaxing on a flowery hillside. It's lovely, but the footage seemed thrown in for no readily apparent reason. Test groups responded to it negatively and it was taken out of some theatrical runs, but restored for the DVD release. The director says he put it in there to remind us all that it's just a movie, and after the movie's depressing events he thought the audience deserved a break.
* The 2004 remake of ''[[Dawn of the Dead (2004 film)|Dawn of the Dead]]'' had extra footage shot and interspersed with the credits after test audiences complained about the original abrupt ending.
* ''[[Snake Eyes]]'': Before the focus groups got their hands (er, eyes) on it, De Palma had an chase through a flooded tunnel and the bad guy getting run over by a globe which has been [[Chekhov's Gun|lying on the ground since the start of the movie]]. When it came to theaters, the chase doesn't go through a flooded tunnel (thus at odds with Nic Cage's reference to it in the epilogue), the globe gets washed off by a wave, and the bad guy kills himself.
* ''[[Star Trek Generations]]'': {{spoiler|Kirk's}} [[Trope Namer|trope-naming]] [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|ignoble death]] was actually an improvement over him getting unceremoniously shot in the back.
* In ''[[Deep Blue Sea]]'', test audiences so despised the female scientist heroine (to the point of loudly screaming "Die, Bitch!" throughout the film), as well as the [[Black Dude Dies First|killing of LL Cool J's character]], that the final ending was changed so that the Black Dude lives while the scientist lady gets munched on by a shark at the very end.
* The 1925 silent film of ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]]'' originally had an ending more in line with the original novel (where Christine kisses Erik (the Phantom) on the forehead and he dies in peace). Test audiences weren't pleased. In the replacement ending, he's chased down by an angry mob and drowned.
* In the film version of ''[[The Saint]]'' starring Val Kilmer, Elizabeth Shue's character originally was going to die but the test screening didn't like it.
* Originally ''[[Flight of the Intruder]]'' featured a court martial scene where Ed O'Neill played a JAG prosecutor. The test audience laughed at the sight of him and yelled "Al Bundy!",
* The original ending of ''[[Final Destination]]'' featured a somewhat happy ending. The hero sleeps with his love interest, gets her pregnant, then dies. The movie closes on the 2 survivors standing by his grave a year later. Test audiences hated it and said they wanted more Rube Goldberg deathtraps. Ironically, the second film revolved around that plot point, just with different players involved.
* ''[[My Best Friend's Wedding]]'' originally ending with Julia Roberts' character hooking up with a random guy at the wedding reception, which audiences complained was an [[Ass Pull]] happy ending, so instead the ending was changed so that her gay friend George appears at the reception instead to comfort her.
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* The people of Sony Picture intended for ''[[Layer Cake]]'' to end with the protagonist [[Riding Into the Sunset|driving into the sunset]] with his new girlfriend. The director didn't like much that plan, so he secretly filmed the scene when {{Spoiler|he is shot by Sydney and his fate is left ambiguous}} to show it to the test screenings. The second finale was the one used, as the audiences unanimously voted for it on account of not being a Typical American film ending.
* ''[[Terminator 2]]'' originally had a coda showing that the Judgement Day had been prevented. James Cameron was apparently very attached to this one, and only relented when both the produces and the test audiences reacted badly to it, replacing it with a more open and less [[Mood Whiplash|whiplashy]] ending.
* Test audiences found a cameo of Tom Hiddleton as Loki in ''[[Avengers: Age of Ultron]]'' extremely confusing, so it was promptly cut.
=== [[Live Action TV]] ===
* When the pilot for ''[[Justified (TV series)|Justified]]'' was shown to focus groups, they loved the character of Boyd Crowder as portrayed by Walton Goggins and hated that he is killed at the end of the episode. Despite the fact that they tried to be very faithful to the Elmore Leonard short story the show is based on, a decision was made to reshoot the ending of the pilot and keep the character alive. The complicated relationship between the show's hero Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder has since become the keystone of the show and is responsible for much of its popularity and critical acclaim.
* Unlike most things in this page, ''[[ER]]'' had a focus group ''beginning''. In the pilot, Nurse Carol Hathaway was going to commit suicide by drug
=== Theatre ===
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