I Always Think That There Is The

First Of All, Just To Get Diner Made Would Have Been An Achievement In That I Got A Chance To Direct.

Rain Man Certainly Didn't Test Really Well. If You Look At It Carefully, You Have A Disease Autism They Didn't Understand Back Then, They Didn't Know In The Test Audience Whether It's Okay To Laugh Or Not Laugh, Because It's A Film That's Done In A Way Where, "well, Maybe I'm Not Supposed To Laugh." At The End Of The Film, Dustin Hoffman Gets On The Train And Doesn't Even Acknowledge His Brother. Not Even A Glance, Nothing. That's Why The Studio Said, "can't You Just Have Him Look At Tom Cruise At The End Of The Film?"

If You Test Iron Man And That Audience Doesn't Respond Well, You Can Be Damn Sure That There Is Something Wrong With The Movie That You Have To Address. Because They're Expecting A Certain Amount Of Action, Right? They Want A Hero. There Are Certain Things That Have To Be Compatible With The Way The Audience Is Thinking About It. If You Take Some Other Film, Like No Country For Old Men, You Can End Up With All Kinds Of Crazy Reactions.

It's Such A Funny Thing. Hollywood Is Terrible Unless You Happen To Be A Celebrity Who's A Republican. So Ronald Reagan Can Be A Hollywood Celebrity, And He's A Republican, And Then He Can Become The President, And That's Okay. Fred Thomson, Well, That's Okay. But The Rest We Need To Demonize. There's No Consistency.

I Think Test Screening Works At Its Best When The Audience Knows What It's Getting.