“What’s in a name?” It’s the question famously posed by William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, and as it turns out, the answer is “quite a lot” – at least, as far as cinema is concerned. Indeed, many of the most popular movies of all time very nearly ended up saddled with truly awful titles that could have jeopardized their chances of success.
Fortunately, the lackluster labels attached to these otherwise awesome films were replaced before they hit theatres – in some instances, only just barely. It’s a good thing too, since – as this list illustrates – these terrible titles could have been enough to turn smash hits into box office bombs!
Back To The Future
Former Universal Pictures head honcho Sid Sheinberg was a pretty hands-on studio executive – and one of his notes in particular caused a major headache for Back to the Future director Bob Zemeckis. See, ol’ Sid was convinced that this beloved sci-fi adventure classic needed a new name, based off the dubious reasoning that no hit movies had ever contained “future” in their title.
His suggestion? Re-work a gag in the script where Marty McFly is mistaken for an alien and call the picture “Space Man From Pluto”, which...wasn’t a great idea. Enter: producer (and Hollywood heavyweight) Steven Spielberg, who applauded Sheinberg on his hilarious “joke” – gently but firmly drawing the debate over the title to a close.
Alien
Seminal 1979 sci-fi/horror mash-up Alien boasts one of the best movie titles ever. Minimalist, bold, and clear, it quite rightly puts the spotlight on the terrifying monster at heart of the narrative. What’s more, there’s something indescribably sophisticated about the movie’s single syllable name that gels brilliantly with director Ridley Scott’s high-brow approach to Alien’s B-movie premise.
Intriguingly, Alien was almost lumped with a decidedly less elegant appellation. Screenwriter Dan O’Bannon developed Alien’s screenplay under the working title “Star Beast” – which the scribe himself thought was abysmal. Searching for an appropriate alternative, O’Bannon finally landed on Alien, once he realized how often the word kept cropping up in his drafts!
Scream
Like Alien, Wes Craven’s Scream benefits immensely from its monosyllabic title that communicates its subject matter both economically and stylishly. This wasn’t always the case, though – writer Kevin Williamson initially envisioned a slightly longer, far less effective name for this 1996 deconstructionist slasher effort.
Back in the early ‘90s, the script Williamson shopped around Hollywood sported the less than impressive headline “Scary Movie”. Admittedly, Williamson’s planned title ties in with the Ghostface villain’s dialogue and hints at Scream’s metafictional aspects, but it’s also undeniably goofy. Indeed, that’s probably why the satirical Scary Movie franchise – which lampoons Scream, among several other horror properties – later adopted the name, instead!
Blade Runner
Don’t get us wrong: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a terrific title…for a novel. However, it’s not exactly ideal when you’re trying to market a big budget sci-fi thriller. That’s why the original headline of author Philip K. Dick’s book was ditched early in production of its 1982 screen adaptation, in favor of the far catchier title Blade Runner.
Funnily enough, "Blade Runner" was actually the name of a completely unrelated script that caught screenwriter Hampton Fancher’s eye. Fancher mentioned the title to director Ridley Scott, who loved it; next minute, the rights to the other project (including its title) were purchased, and the newly acquired name immediately appropriated!
Goodfellas
Nicolas Pileggi’s true crime novel Wiseguys – which documents the rise and fall of mobster Henry Hill – served as the basis for Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed 1990 epic Goodfellas. Scorsese had intended to release his big screen version of Pileggi’s book using its original header, until he became aware of two other competing projects bearing similar names.
To be honest, we’re glad things panned out the way they did. Wiseguys is a perfectly serviceable (if boring) title for a picture about crooks, but it’s a little bland and very much on the nose, too. On the other hand, Goodfellas deftly communicates the story’s subject matter without beating you over the head with it – plus there’s the irony of branding the flick’s violent, amoral underworld protagonists “good."
Speed
In case you haven’t noticed by now, we’re a huge fan of concise film titles. It’s not that we don’t appreciate wordier names for movies, but shorter is almost always better. Take Speed: this 1994 action thriller was originally known as “Minimum Speed” – a reference to key plot device around which the whole middle act pivots.
Yet rather than conveying the excitement of Speed’s adrenaline-fuelled narrative, “Minimum Speed” gave off the exact opposite impression, suggesting a slow-moving affair. Recognizing this, screenwriter Graham Yost dropped the first part of the title, and Speed finally had itself a brand that truly represented its propulsive charms.
Pretty Woman
Fun fact: virtually everything about Pretty Woman was dramatically altered prior to the beloved romantic comedy hitting theatres – including its title. Originally a gritty drama that offered up a much bleaker snapshot of the sex industry in Los Angeles circa the 1980s, Pretty Woman started life as “3,000”.
As the script’s tone lightened with each successive draft, the “3,000” title soon became irrelevant and in need of a rethink – besides which, according to James B Stewart’s DisneyWar, Disney executives hated the name anyway. This inspired director Garry Marshall to substitute it for “Pretty Woman” – a callback to the Roy Orbison track “Oh, Pretty Woman” which figures prominently in the movie’s soundtrack.
Almost Famous
Writer-director Cameron Crowe wanted to call his semi-autobiographical coming-of-age joint Almost Famous “Untitled” – so much so that this title that appears in the extended Director’s Edition home release. To be honest, even though we’re all for brevity, we can’t fully get behind Crowe’s preferred title, try as we might.
Sure, it’s a nice reflection of the journalism aspects of the story. But ultimately, “Untitled” lacks the flair of “Almost Famous”, which neatly ties in with the movie’s rock ‘n’ roll tour trappings and several plot elements and themes. That said, Almost Famous didn’t exactly light up the box office, so maybe a different title would have helped!
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Was there ever a movie with a more paradoxically schlocky yet oddly well-crafted moniker than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? With these four simple words, director (and co-writer) Tobe Hooper immediately establishes exactly the kind of cinematic experience you can expect: an unrelentingly harrowing one!
Interestingly, Hooper nearly went in an entirely different direction when it came time to christen his influential 1974 slasher flick. As revealed in the home media release’s audio commentary, Hooper toyed with options ranging from the wildly noncommercial (“Headcheese”, anyone?) to the potentially viable (“Leatherface” is a fantastic name…for a sequel) before embracing the unbeatable directness of the film’s final title.
Tomorrow Never Dies
The history of film is littered with instances of “happy accidents”: things that go wrong during production that somehow manage to improve the finished product. Tomorrow Never Dies, Pierce Brosnan’s second outing as James Bond, certainly falls under this umbrella – indeed, it owes its very name to just such a fortuitous slip-up!
How? Well, when MGM received a list of titles for Agent 007’s 18th big screen mission, “Tomorrow Never Dies” emerged as the clear frontrunner. Funnily enough, that name was a mistake: “Tomorrow Never Lies” was the title Eon Productions originally intended to pitch – which admittedly ties in neatly with movie’s media-centric plot…but sounds waaaaaay less sexy.