Kevin Goetz

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Kevin Goetz is the CEO of Screen Engine, an entertainment market-research firm that’s a leader in conducting test screenings, a critical step that is likely to have influenced the final production of many of the films recently nominated for Academy Awards, which will be presented March 2.

Photography: 
Tamar Levine

Before a movie hits the multiplex, before the critics give it a thumbs-up or thumbs-down and a box-office winner is declared—even before the soundtrack has been chosen—hundreds of moviegoers sit in a theater and pass judgment on an early version of the film. After the credits roll, they fill out two-sided questionnaires; about 20 stick around for a focus group. And then alumnus Kevin Goetz pow-wows with the film’s director and producers—leading players in Hollywood like James Cameron, Ron Howard, and Angelina Jolie—and tells them what the audience thinks.

“People have worked years on this movie, and in one evening an audience response can just speak the truth,” says Goetz MSGA’84, the CEO of Screen Engine, an entertainment market-research firm that’s a leader in conducting test screenings, a critical step that is likely to have influenced the final production of many of the films recently nominated for Academy Awards, which will be presented March 2.

The Los Angeles Times labeled Goetz “the Dr. Phil of Hollywood focus groups,” putting him on its list of the most powerful people in Southern California: “Got a blockbuster in the pipeline? Chances are that Goetz will have something to say about how it gets released.”

Each test screening is like a mini wedding—this big, stress-filled event, with 300 or 400 people attending—and Goetz puts on hundreds each year. For the filmmakers, it’s a moment of truth. “I get them at their most vulnerable,” Goetz says. “I have to act not only as a researcher, but also, in many ways, more like a friend, consigliere, confessor, priest, and doctor. I have to give a diagnosis and a prognosis.”

The screening process can make a big difference. One oft-cited example? Fatal Attraction. At screenings, the reaction came down to one thing: the ending. The Glenn Close character, audiences felt, wasn’t getting her comeuppance. That ending was reshot (with Close and the director objecting), and the rest is history. The film made the cover of Time magazine and turned into a cultural touchstone.

Over the years, Goetz has worked on upward of 4,000 movies, with films as diverse as Titanic and Slumdog Millionaire (and, yes, Fatal Attraction). His ties to show business predate his years at Rutgers. As a child actor, he was in commercials for Domino’s Pizza, Toyota, and Wrangler jeans. He paid his way through school by running his own business—an acting and dancing school. And he recently made a six-figure gift to the Mason Gross School of the Arts to name a theater and dance movement studio at Robert E. Mortensen Hall. Although he’s a businessman, he retains the sensibility of an artist and someone who speaks the filmmakers’ language. He shares the research—a 40-page report is prepared within 24 hours of a screening—and, as he puts it, “I try to guide the filmmaker to arrive at the right answer.”