Seems changing movie titles is all the rage lately.
A few months back, Warner Bros. took the perfectly good and unique title of the new Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt sci-fi epic All You Need is Kill and substituted it for the generic Edge of Tomorrow, something that makes the expensive Doug Liman-directed project sound like a daytime soap opera.
Internet message boards for the movie are replete with snarky jibes at how immediately forgettable the new name is, and some of the comments are hysterical.
While we wait for “Edge of my Tongue” to hit the big screen next month, this seems like a good time to recall some other famous instances when the title of a big-budget tent-pole type movie was tweaked before release.
As Star Wars lore will have it, it was a fan who reminded creator George Lucas that, no, a Jedi would never take revenge. Despite a year-long teaser campaign touting the 1983 premiere of “Revenge” of the Jedi, the title was altered mere months before release to the more suitable “Return” of the Jedi.
First-issue theatrical posters from 1982 branded with “Revenge” remain one of the most valuable collector’s items in the Star Wars universe.
Licence to Kill (1989)
Having nearly run out of Ian Fleming-penned titles, the producers of the James Bond series came up with an original title in 1989 that for the first and only time echoed the name of one of the non-Ian Fleming books.
An obvious nod toward John Gardner’s 1981 novel “License Renewed,” the 16th 007 movie was conceived as Licence Revoked but the filmmakers worried that:
- American audiences wouldn’t understand what the word “Revoked” meant; and
- Fans who’d actually looked up the meaning of the word wouldn’t flock to a Bond movie with a title suggesting our hero will be dismissed from Her Majesty’s Secret Service (even though that’s what actually happens in the film).
At least the final title retains the alternate European spelling of the word “Licence.”
Terminator: Salvation (2009)
Sometimes, dropping a blathering subtitle can change everything.
When T4 was first announced, it was to be called Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, a mouthful that sounds as staggeringly inert as the finished product eventually turned out to be. The final title is still a yawner, but at least it rolls off the tongue a bit easier.
Recent news suggests the upcoming fifth movie—presently called Terminator: Genesis—may also undergo a title change…which would be most welcome, inasmuch as the current name sounds like the film will envision a cross-pollination of Skynet with the Genesis Device from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Months before the release of the upcoming third and final installment in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Hobbit, the forthcoming finale has been rechristened The Battle of the Five Armies. As Jackson explains, the original title There and Back Again was more suitable when the adaptation was planned as a two-parter, but after the project was reconfigured to be a trilogy midway through production, and since we already got “There” in Part 2, the “Back Again” thrust of Part 3 required a brand new subtitle.
Jackson says the original title may still eventually apply to the inevitable deluxe three-film expanded edition Blu-ray set—which makes sense since “There and Back Again” is the subtitle of the whole book.
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