Test audiences wanted more violence for THE LOVELY BONES
Just when you thought Hollywood couldn’t get any crazier, a story like this pops up. For those of you who don’t know, THE LOVELY BONES tells the story of Susie Salmon, a young girl who is brutally raped and murdered. So how do you spice up a movie with such a grim subject matter? More violence. At least that’s what test audiences said.
Director Peter Jackson has revealed that he had to shoot extra footage for select scenes. Early screenings of the film resulted in audiences being disappointed in the lack of “violence and suffering,” so Jackson returned to the cutting room to add more in. Thankfully, it seems like none of the extra brutality was directed at the young Susie Salmon.
The main scene in question dealt with a character jumping off a cliff. As Jackson put it, “we got a lot of people telling us that they were disappointed with this death scene, as they wanted to see [the character] in agony and suffer a lot more. We had to create a whole suffering death scene just to give people the satisfaction they needed.”
All the trailers I’ve seen for this movie have played it up as a whodunit mystery in which Susie is trying to catch her killer from beyond the grave. I’ve read the book and the story is definitely not that, so I wonder if the test audiences went in with that expectation. Of course, I have to trust Peter Jackson that the extra violence will be worth it. If there’s anyone who knows about book adaptations and gore, it’s him.
Source The Guardian
Commenting Rules: Comments are intended to open up the discussion to our readers about the topics at hand, and as such should be offered with a positive and constructive attitude. If your comment is not relative to the above post or is disrespectful to the authors and readers, we reserve the right to delete it. Continued abuse of our good nature will result in banishment of the offender. Additionally, if you have any burning issues to point out to the GATW crew - typos, corrections, suggestions, or straight-up criticism - please email us instead of commenting here.