Jerry Bruckheimer is responsible for some of the most popular movies ever made. From some of the best ‘80s classics, like Beverly Hills Cop and Flashdance, to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise to, oh yeah, a couple of small movies called Top Gun, the producer has made so many box office hits it’s difficult to keep track of them all.
While not every Jerry Bruckheimer movie is a hit with critics, they tend to do well at the box office. Knowing that, one might expect there’s a correlation between first audience scores and eventual box office take. That’s apparently not the case because while Bruckheimer’s highest-grossing movie to date is Top Gun: Maverick, the film that was the biggest hit with test audiences was something very different.
Young Woman And The Sea Outperformed All Of Jerry Bruckheimer’s Films At Test Screenings
Unless you’re one of the few people who actually saw The Young Woman and the Sea, Daisy Ridley‘s film about swimmer Gertrude Ederle, when it premiered in theaters on the 2024 movie schedule, you may not have even been aware it was there. The movie was originally planned as a Disney+ release, but after a shakeup in the schedule, the film found itself premiering in cinemas.
Bruckheimer says the reason for that may have been because the movie scored better with test audiences than any other film he’s ever produced. He told THR…
When you walked in and felt the kind of emotion from the audience as they were watching [Young Woman and the Sea], you knew that it was going to be effective. They were laughing and applauding and crying, and then when we got the score, we couldn’t believe it.
As one of the few people on earth who did see Young Woman and the Sea in theaters, I concur that the film is truly excellent. Unfortunately, in this case, a great audience score did not translate to a large audience in the theaters. The film only got a limited theatrical release and didn’t do massive business even as a proportion of its size.
It’s remarkable that one of the lowest-grossing movies of Jerry Bruckheimer’s career apparently did better with test audiences than his highest-grossing. However, we actually already knew that Top Gun: Maverick didn’t blow the world away with its test screenings.
Top Gun: Maverick Wasn’t A Massive Hit With Test Audiences
Apparently, you never can tell with test audiences. While they are supposed to help give a studio an idea of how the public will react to a film, there was no expectation that Top Gun: Maverick was going to be quite the hit it ended up being. Jerry Bruckheimer revealed back in 2022 that while Maverick’s test screenings weren’t bad, they also weren’t an indication that the movie would become the phenomenon that it did. He said…
The test screenings on Maverick had a high score, but it wasn’t through the roof. The lower part of the score was the younger audience, while older people who saw the original were very enthusiastic.
I guess what this tells us is that test audiences maybe don’t know as much as we thought. They may know a good movie when they see one, but they can’t predict a hit.
Still, they weren’t wrong about Young Woman and the Sea. It’s a great movie, and if you have a Disney+ subscription, you should go watch it right now.