Pet Sematary

The new ‘Pet Sematary’ was able to thrill critics and fans but there was one slight hiccup before the Stephen King adaptation was released. In the early trailers for the movie, we found out that Ellie was going to be killed and brought back from the dead instead of Gage. This is a huge deviation from the source material that had many fans of both the novel and first movie worried that we were in for too many changes that could potentially derail what ended up on the big screen.

Thankfully, fan reaction ended up positive, and the movie grossed over $112 million at the worldwide box office and only had a $21 million budget.

 

RELATED:  Producer Thinks ‘Pet Sematary’ Will More Likely Get A Prequel Than A Sequel

 

As to why the change was aired early, co-director Kevin Kolsch explains that:

“Obviously, we did not want to spoil that. Nobody did. The executives didn’t want to spoil it, the producers didn’t want to spoil it. That decision was a marketing decision. To their credit, though, the marketing guys were very transparent about the entire process. They involved us as much as they could. They said they basically tried, themselves, not to spoil it. It was not their original intent. They went as far as they could without spoiling it. But, this is what these guys do for a living. They tested it, and they tested it, and they tested it, to all demos, all countries, all States. They were looking at a much wider picture that we were. They determined it was much harder to market the film to people who hadn’t heard of Pet Sematary without having an iconic image of a “villain,” an antagonist. They needed someone to put on a poster, looking evil, to promise something to the audience.”

With the major twist in ‘Terminator: Genisys‘ having turned audiences off the film before even giving it a chance, this almost felt like it could be as significant. The movie is a solid viewing, so thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Kolsch went on further to share how their views of this reveal evolved over time where they eventually came to embrace it:

“While we were against it, we did find that once the theatrical trailer came out, where that was revealed, subsequently, when we tested the film again, it tested better. It was almost like, people were going to these private testings who had seen the trailer and knew about it going into the film, it tested better. I don’t know if there’s a definite correlation to that; it just might be that the film itself had gotten a better edit by the time we got to that, but there’s a reason why they do the trailers, and we don’t. I think, in a perfect ideal world, it would not have been revealed, and we would have loved to see that scenario play out, but it is what it is! They stood by their decision, but they were very sweet about the whole thing, very nice about it. We can’t begrudge them. The film opened really well, did good business. The posters looked great, the trailers were great. We really can’t complain, you know?”

Were you annoyed that the switch of which child ended up being brought back to life was shared before ‘Pet Sematary’ made it to the big screen? At the end of the day, did it at all ruin your enjoyment of the film? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

 

Source: Screen Rant