Focus groups are random, right place at the right time.

Early screenings are easier, you just have to put in the time. Extra tickets to them are provided to local papers and radio stations. In my city a major radio station "sold" them using points from listening. They'd give out one password an hour for the morning show, there was a site that recorded them, I'd go on the site every day, copy and paste the passcodes into the station website, collect the points, cash them in for movies I wanted to see.

My city isn't Las Angeles though. Their might be fewer available seats there than in my city.

...He is playing a different version of Joel... It's an adaptation...

This is the sub where people post threads about how there is this movie called Dances With Wolves (The Matrix, Speed, Tombstone, etc. Etc) that nobody has ever heard of and they just discovered and everyone needs to watch. Someone posting that History of Violence is what they think older Cronenberg films are is not out of the norm.

...History of Violence is not older Cronenberg....

...The technology most definitely does not exist...

No doubt. From personal experience it's been a good decade plus since I walked into The Bay and saw a polar bear mauling somebody.

Because they pretty much all sucked and developers started making games inspired by films using the IP instead of direct adaptations

No, it's nothing to worry about. It's a potential threat, but not for hundreds of years from now.

Putin's war, climate change, and the rise of right wing extremism are much more immediate existential threats.