MADONNA, HERSELF : Hate Her? When the Lights Came On They <i> Respected</i> Her

The first time that pop star Madonna sat with an audience to watch “Truth or Dare,” the new documentary about her Blond Ambition tour, she was prepared for them not to like it. That’s because all 150 had said before the screening that they hated her guts.

“We knew that Madonna fans would love the movie,” Harvey Weinstein, whose Miramax Films is distributing the movie in the United States, said at the Cannes Film Festival. “What we wanted to know before we started marketing it was whether anyone else would like it.” Before Miramax spent a cent to market the film, it had a 77% awareness factor.

With Madonna sitting unnoticed in the back of a screening room at the Tribeca Film Center in Manhattan, the hostile crowd started to come around. According to Weinstein, 65% of those in the audience said afterward that they liked the movie. “They may not have loved her after seeing the movie,” he said, “but they respected her.”

How do you get people who hate Madonna to sit through a movie about her?

“It was easy,” Weinstein said. “We just went to record stores and asked people what they thought of her. If they said they hated her guts, we said, ‘Good, if you’ll come to this movie and fill out a card, we’ll give you two free tickets to the next Miramax premiere.’ You’ll be amazed at what people will do for free tickets.”