Kevin Goetz featured on The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood Podcast with Sonny Bunch

What Audience Testing Actually Tells Us About Movies

Kevin Goetz recently appeared on Sonny Bunch’s Bulwark Goes to Hollywood podcast to discuss his new book, How to Score in Hollywood. The conversation centers on a simple but often ignored idea: the audience is what it is, not what you want it to be. Filmmakers and studios fall in love with their projects and assume the world will too, and Kevin’s work is largely about injecting some reality into that process, from early concept testing through to marketing. He also gets into how streaming has changed audience behavior, why the filmmaker’s name is carrying more weight than it used to, and what this year’s Oscar nominees revealed about what audiences actually respond to.

Here are some of the highlights from the discussion:

The audience is what it is. Goetz’s central argument is that filmmakers and studios often misjudge how many people will actually care about a given project. Kevin’s firm, Screen Engine, tests concepts before production begins, polling large samples to gauge genuine interest. The goal isn’t to kill movies but to help set budgets that make financial sense given the likely audience size.

The filmmaker matters more than it used to. Goetz says his testing data shows audiences are increasingly responding to a director’s distinct voice, not just stars or familiar IP. Names like Ryan Coogler and Jordan Peele now carry real commercial weight. Whether this trend holds or is limited to a handful of filmmakers remains to be seen, but it’s showing up in the numbers.

Streaming changed the engagement calculus. Films released on streaming platforms can lose a significant chunk of their audience in the first ten minutes if they don’t hook people quickly. Goetz notes that filmmakers working in that space have had to rethink how they open their movies. Instead of dumbing things down, filmmakers need to be more deliberate about early engagement.

The Oscar nominees tested better than expected. Without getting into specifics, Goetz said most of this year’s best picture nominees scored higher in testing than one might anticipate. He pointed to F1 as an example of a film that tested exceptionally well by his firm’s standards.

The full conversation is worth a listen for anyone curious about how the sausage gets made. You can find it here, and How to Score in Hollywood is available wherever books are sold.