Greenland. I almost didn't click it, and I definitely didn't expect it to be the disaster epic it was from the title and poster. It's also kind of a spoiler.
I was honestly expecting Greenland to be Geostorm 2 Electric Boogaloo because of the casting of Gerard Butler and his "\_\_\_\_ Has Fallen" series. Was not expecting it to be as quality as it was (aside from the unrealistically happy ending).
I read that the film's creator sincerely thought that everyone knew about John Carter and would be extremely excited to watch the movie. People tried to get him to change the title or promotion strategy but it didn't work out.
>I read that the film's creator sincerely thought that everyone knew about John Carter and would be extremely excited to watch the movie. People tried to get him to change the title or promotion strategy but it didn't work out.
There was already some controversy around the title – “John Carter of Mars” is actually the name of the final book in the Burroughs cycle. The first book and the one that the movie is based on is called “A Princess of Mars.” (“Technically the first movie should have been titled the ‘Princess of Mars,’ so off the bat, I was so confused as to what was happening,” Lynn Collins said.) “A Princess of Mars” was out of the question because, as Stanton said at a press event in December 2011, “I’d already changed it from ‘A Princess of Mars‘ to ‘John Carter of Mars.’ I don’t like to get fixated on it, but I changed ‘Princess Of Mars’… because not a single boy would go.”
The decision to drop the “of Mars” was a little more complicated. Chabon remembers attending a meeting led by Disney’s new president of movie marketing MT Carney, who a New York Times article described as having “zero movie experience, coming from a New York marketing agency specializing in packaged goods.” She went through a list of 11 movies from the past 15 that all had “Mars” in the title – Disney’s own “Mission to Mars” and “Mars Needs Moms” (both costly duds), along with other movies like “Mars Attacks.” Chabon said that these were “movies that had in some cases had nothing in common with each other except for the fact that they have Mars in the title. Almost all of them were bad movies.”
“So, we’re taking Mars out of title,” Carney told the group. “It’s just going to be called ‘John Carter.’”
“That was the first moment, I was like, ‘Oh, f–k. This is not good. We may be in trouble here,’” Chabon said. “From that meeting until it came out, it was not good after that.”
[https://www.thewrap.com/john-carter-movie-history-why-it-failed/](https://www.thewrap.com/john-carter-movie-history-why-it-failed/)
I might be mixing up movies but I read the studio insisted on the name because movies that have "Mars" in the title have always tanked at the box office.
It obviously didn't help them here if that were the case.
(as a side note I might be mixing it up with The Red Planet but my brain is telling me it's John Carter)
Mixed feelings on this.
On the one hand, the original John Carter stories were written and published in an era when Mars was a source of mystery to people and there was a ton of popular fiction that posited there was intelligent life there.
But the movie was released in era when we know that isn't true. So I'm guessing the folks at Disney figured leaning into the Mars thing wasn't a good idea. Probably the same reason why Spielberg's War of The Worlds(2005) also doesn't identify Mars as the home world of the invaders even though H.G. Wells original 1898 story and every other subsequent media adaption clearly states that they are Martians.
But the problem that you allude to is this: "John Carter" is a very bland, unexciting title that tells the audience nothing about the film.
> "John Carter" is a very bland, unexciting title that tells the audience nothing about the film.
Lmao, and would you say the same about John Wick? John Wick is an equally bland title that tells you nothing about the movie. But because the movie was great, the title is now synonymous with the quality.
John Carter the actual movie is beyond mediocre. Don’t blame the title for that lol
If I was told I had to spend the day with a stranger I would only be able to pick by name and it was between John Carter and John Wick, John Wick wins. Small seemingly innocuous details can alter the perception of things. John Wick excites more than John Carter.
If they wanted to keep John Carter in the title, they could call it "John Carter and the Princess of Mars" which sounds like a schlocky sci-fi title which is what the movie totally is.
Great example. The box office failure of the film is frequently blamed on the title. Wages of Fear, like the original French film, would have been much better.
Army of Darkness is a fucking awesome title.......for any other movie featuring an undead army. Army of Boneheads would be more fitting for this movie 🤣
But admittedly The Medieval Dead probably wouldn't have worked so well in non-english speaking countries.
Karate Kid (2010) should've kept it's original title Kung Fu Kid which a few countries were lucky enough to get. But they wanted to make sure everyone knew it was related to the original movies.
still being so adamant to call it the karate kid when there is no karate involved is just a massive mistake tbh, they must have known they were working on a complete flop of a film to have to stick to that title the way they did
This is a really good answer. If it had just presented the guise of being a different movie I bet it would be much better received despite keeping almost the exact same plot (similar to Creed).
Instead the title makes it so it'll always be considered worse than the original, while also just being a flat out lie lol.
Wet Hot American Summer, but primarily because I was late turning it in to Blockbuster as a teenager and my mom got a notice that “Wet Hot…” was late and thought I was renting porn…
The only reason I watched it is because I was like 14 and saw the name on a movie channel late at night and thought there would be hella boobs. So glad I did because it’s one of my all time favorites.
Or even Now You See Me: Now You Don't so they've still got the first movie in the title.
Maybe they were worried people would joke about not seeing the film?
thats how we end up with all the dodgy titles given as examples in this thread though. one minute we all universally say the name does not make sense or that they should not go so deep into naming something that has a very obvious name already, but then say its ok for ones like this because it is a good title and its funny or whatever..
but that is exactly what the people in charge think about all the other films that should have just been named properly lol, they think they are being smart or clever when we are trying to tell them thats not the case at all
Yeah lol, imagine the alternate world where they called the movie "Now You Don't", it flops and gets memed on and joked about incessantly because of it.
I think small soldiers is the first movie I have a memory of watching at the cinema. I had little army toy guys too that were almost the same as the characters in small soldiers and I loved it so much haha. I remember being worried that my dad was going to make us leave because it was too ‘grown up’ lol
I'm pretty sure you can swap all the names of all the sequels and it still works.
Ep. 7 = The Last Jedi (searching for Luke - the last true jedi)
Ep.8 = The Rise of Skywalker (Luke rises from hiding and "fights" Kylo Ren)
Ep.9 = The Force Awakens (or re-awakens actually. Rey brings back the Jedi after Luke's death in ep.8)
Not saying its better that way, but it technically still works.
I'd say 2 and 5 are the ones you can't swap at all. 1 is petty limited too. I guess it would work for 2 and 3 seeing how the big threat is still hidden to the heroes for most of them, but it makes the most sense for 1.
To be accurate, should've been "Do Not Watch This. No, We Really Mean It. This Means You Person Who Enjoys Bad Movies."
I very rarely find a movie to be wholly bad, but I couldn't find a thing to like about it, and I like Banderas and Liu in almost anything.
World War Z is a legitimately good zombie movie. Just not a good World War Z adaptation. Literally name it anything else and it would’ve been better off.
I was just thinking this. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it. The only relationship to the book is its about zombies, and they occasionally call them zekes. The similarities stop there. I was really frustrated by the movie because of how much I loved the book and how they took nothing from it.
A couple that come to mind:
Million Dollar Baby - sounds like a 30s musical, and not a very good one.
The Artist - incredibly vague, and not really that applicable to the story.
Medieval Dead is a GREAT title. I always hear Army of Darkness and for some reason, think of the Hearts of Darkness documentary about Apocalypse Now LOL
John carter,
they had a ton of amazing book titles to go with and they just used the character's generic name. At least try to cram the word “mars” in there somewhere.
for reference these are the book titles, they could have used any of them and it would have been better.
A Princess of Mars
The Gods of Mars
The Warlord of Mars
Thuvia, Maid of Mars
The Chessmen of Mars
The Mastermind of Mars
A Fighting Man of Mars
Swords of Mars
Synthetic Men of Mars
Llana of Gathol
John Carter of Mars
There were a lot of reasons why it ended up with the name it did.
Several people were so sure that men wouldn't want to see a movie with "princess" in the title so that one was dropped. They were also insistent that women wouldn't go see the movie if "of mars" was included because "women don't watch sci-fi" and a title with Mars in the name would scare them off.
And another big reason is that movies with "Mars" in the title have notoriously done really bad at the box office so the studio (who had just recently had another movie Mars Needs Moms do poorly) wanted to distance themselves from that as well.
In the end though I think the title is probably the least of them films worries. It was notoriously badly marketed by a studiohead that had no idea what he was doing and intentionally stopped them from making the movie actually look good, by producing lack luster trailers and just assuming that a shirtless hunk on the poster would sell enough tickets. They were also trying to recover from a couple other similar styled movies that failed to perform, so they intentionally avoided promoting the movie for what it was in fear.
They were also in the midst of buying the Star Wars stuff so there was little motivation for them to put stock into a "competiting" spaced theme saga.
It could have been a great movie with a cool name but the studio did pretty much all they could to make sure that it wasn't going to successful.
BTW it’s awful how they translate some movie names in Russian. E.g. Hangover was translated as “Bachelor party in Vegas”; “Frozen”-> “Cold heart”; “Silver linings playbook”-> “My boyfriend is a psycho” 😳😏🤯
For those that didn't see it, the trailers pulled a classic bait and switch, it turned out to just be a courtroom drama. Batman v Superman was the name of the court case.
But you wouldn't get the whole, "Dr. Strange and the M.O.M." Yeah, the writers were trying to be cute with the title. You can almost feel them elbowing you in the ribs while saying, "Get it? Get it? Because it's about Wanda. She's a mom trying to find her kids at no matter what the cost."
I really hate that name because it led one to believe that it’s gonna be a crazy movie with a lot of multiverse shit and that’s not it at all. What’s worse is that I watched this a week after *Everything, Everywhere, All At Once*, and that movie came across like the *real* multiverse of madness.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Seems like one of Tom Cruise’s lesser known films even though it’s one of the better ones. Surprising since they originally decided against using the title from the manga it’s made from (All You Need Is Kill) and still couldn’t nail down a solid name.
The people that think that are just pretentious weaboo purists who don't realise it just comes across as weird broken English and a joke to most people. One of my mum's friends lived in Japan when the original light novel came out and he posted a photo of an ad of it and captioned it "ah, is that all you need?" lmao. It definitely isn't a good title.
Weaboo purists having unselfaware questionable taste that wouldn’t be understandable to the vast majority of audiences? On my internet?
It’s more likely than you think. News at 11.
I got into a long sort of argument a while back about how dumb All You Need is Kill sounds. Like that's clearly a product of someone who doesn't speak great English, but some people were really defending how cool and great it sounded.
Ikr?
Had to look up why it was even named Brazil, as I'd forgotten the details:
> Brazil was developed under the titles The Ministry and 1984 ½, the latter a nod not only to Orwell's original Nineteen Eighty-Four but also to 8½ directed by Federico Fellini; Gilliam often cites Fellini as one of the defining influences on his visual style.[25] During the film's production, other working titles floated about, including The Ministry of Torture, How I Learned to Live with the System—So Far,[26] and So That's Why the Bourgeoisie Sucks,[27] before settling with Brazil, relating to the name of its escapist signature tune.
Pretty much *any* of those titles would have made more sense for this film.
Probably a bad translation but the German film titled "The Nasty Girl" sounds like a softcore porn but is actually about a German small town covering up their involvement in supporting Nazis and the Third Reich.
I cannot believe I haven’t seen anyone in this thread mention The Suicide Squad (2021)— which is NOT the same movie as Suicide Squad (2016)
Who the hell thought that was a good idea?
Agreed. Even decades later as an adult recommending this movie to people who have never seen it, men tend to balk at the title.
The book author/movie screenwriter William Goldman named it that because he asked his young daughters what his next book should be about; one said a princess, the other said a bride, so that became the title.
100%. Us boys in my youth group were PISSED when we were told the title and that it was the movie for movie night. We spent all day goofing on the name and obnoxiously criticizing the choice. Then once we watched we we all loved it.
I am Legend should have been called anything besides things that associate it with the source material it mutilated IE Omega Man, Neville, Guy is actually the bad guy…anything, please.
I am Legend is an amazing movie that was pretty much ruined by its association with the book.
If you haven't read the book then it's one of the best post-apocalypse movies out there and Will Smith honestly should have been nominated for an Oscar for his performance, he fucking carried that movie.
That needed to have Mars in the title somewhere. "John Carter" is Noah Wyle on ER. I have no idea what a movie about him would be but it doesn't look like whatever this trailer is showing.
**Buena Vista pictures presents; Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A** ***Princess of Mars*****."**
Buena Vista, not Disney, not a juvenile movie.
Edgar Rice Burroughs- recognizable name, classic author
Princess - fantasy
Mars - Sci fi.
All this adds up to "Grown up, or at least all-ages, move based on a classic work of fiction that blends sci-fi and fantasy." That title alone would have sold more tickets without actual marketing than *John fucking Carter the doctor from ER maybe, some fucking guy, or whatever.*
Just wrote out a long reply naming this movie before scrolling, deleted so not knocked for copying.
I remember seeing this without being named in the trailer...I was like I know what this movie will be! Then "John Carter" showed up as the title and I was flabbergasted. Why would they name it that over so many better choices!? You could not have picked a less interesting title if you tried.
My takeaway after watching that was
Overheard at the John Carter pitch meeting
"It's basically 3 hours of Taylor Kitsch jumping around."
"Will it at least look cool?"
"Oh, god no."
"Here's 300 million dollars."
I was in my early 20s when it came out, and thought it was solidly okay.
That said, I could actually legit imagine someone who was 12 or younger at the time having really enjoyed it, and having a lot of nostalgia for it. Rose tinted glasses and all that.
It might be because of the author being the writer of Tarzan or just the idea of having a demi-god as the main character. Tarzan, contrary to the disney movie, was not at all a dim-witted jungle man. Quite the opposite, almost like The Monster in Frakenstein, He was superhuman, learned multiple languages and overall was just portrayed as adonis like.
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.
They did change the title during the theatrical run to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey or something.
Michael Clayton is a fairly decent movie shrouded by an incredibly boring title.
"Hey, do you wanna watch, uh... Sexy Space Murderers, Eternal Face War, or ... some guy's legal name?"
The title wasn’t the problem. It was the bad marketing that killed it. Sandberg himself said that they were completely puzzled by it. (They had no input).
Greenland. I almost didn't click it, and I definitely didn't expect it to be the disaster epic it was from the title and poster. It's also kind of a spoiler.
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I fiiiinally watched *Greenland* last week after skipping over it for the title alone. It’s a good film. Would recommend.
True. I was expecting it to be your average disaster movie that you see when nothing better was on but it was actually pretty good.
I was honestly expecting Greenland to be Geostorm 2 Electric Boogaloo because of the casting of Gerard Butler and his "\_\_\_\_ Has Fallen" series. Was not expecting it to be as quality as it was (aside from the unrealistically happy ending).
Halloween III: Season of the Witch wouldn't have gotten so much hate if it had simply been called Season of the Witch.
Aw you stole my answer… Carpenter got screwed with that mis-titling. To think what could have been.
It was a good idea, but the audience just didn't go for it.
It’s just sad that it’s not an idea he’s considered revisiting years later. Even a miniseries would be great.
Halloween was never supposed to be about Myers. Each Halloween was going to be a new story. Carp got screwed
I never knew that but a Halloween-esque anthology series would’ve been so awesome to see
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
Stone-Cold Bummer based on the novel "Hard to Read" by Manipulate
Funny thing to happen to a guy named Lucky.
They retitled it because of Push starring Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning
Why not just call it Precious?
Presumably they wanted to still have the book title there to make sure the book readers saw it. That's my only guess.
Why not just Push by Sapphire
Push, based on the Novel Precious, by Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning.
That shit confused me so much on The Office
I sincerely believe that John Carter would've been a hit if they'd called it WARLORD OF MARS
I read that the film's creator sincerely thought that everyone knew about John Carter and would be extremely excited to watch the movie. People tried to get him to change the title or promotion strategy but it didn't work out.
>I read that the film's creator sincerely thought that everyone knew about John Carter and would be extremely excited to watch the movie. People tried to get him to change the title or promotion strategy but it didn't work out. There was already some controversy around the title – “John Carter of Mars” is actually the name of the final book in the Burroughs cycle. The first book and the one that the movie is based on is called “A Princess of Mars.” (“Technically the first movie should have been titled the ‘Princess of Mars,’ so off the bat, I was so confused as to what was happening,” Lynn Collins said.) “A Princess of Mars” was out of the question because, as Stanton said at a press event in December 2011, “I’d already changed it from ‘A Princess of Mars‘ to ‘John Carter of Mars.’ I don’t like to get fixated on it, but I changed ‘Princess Of Mars’… because not a single boy would go.” The decision to drop the “of Mars” was a little more complicated. Chabon remembers attending a meeting led by Disney’s new president of movie marketing MT Carney, who a New York Times article described as having “zero movie experience, coming from a New York marketing agency specializing in packaged goods.” She went through a list of 11 movies from the past 15 that all had “Mars” in the title – Disney’s own “Mission to Mars” and “Mars Needs Moms” (both costly duds), along with other movies like “Mars Attacks.” Chabon said that these were “movies that had in some cases had nothing in common with each other except for the fact that they have Mars in the title. Almost all of them were bad movies.” “So, we’re taking Mars out of title,” Carney told the group. “It’s just going to be called ‘John Carter.’” “That was the first moment, I was like, ‘Oh, f–k. This is not good. We may be in trouble here,’” Chabon said. “From that meeting until it came out, it was not good after that.” [https://www.thewrap.com/john-carter-movie-history-why-it-failed/](https://www.thewrap.com/john-carter-movie-history-why-it-failed/)
Totally forgot Michael Chabon was the writer on that. They had assembled such a dream team and then didn't let them make the movie they wanted.
I might be mixing up movies but I read the studio insisted on the name because movies that have "Mars" in the title have always tanked at the box office. It obviously didn't help them here if that were the case. (as a side note I might be mixing it up with The Red Planet but my brain is telling me it's John Carter)
Yeah, I believe this was right after the flop of Mars Needs Moms and Disney got nervous that people might think they were somehow related.
Mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, the original John Carter stories were written and published in an era when Mars was a source of mystery to people and there was a ton of popular fiction that posited there was intelligent life there. But the movie was released in era when we know that isn't true. So I'm guessing the folks at Disney figured leaning into the Mars thing wasn't a good idea. Probably the same reason why Spielberg's War of The Worlds(2005) also doesn't identify Mars as the home world of the invaders even though H.G. Wells original 1898 story and every other subsequent media adaption clearly states that they are Martians. But the problem that you allude to is this: "John Carter" is a very bland, unexciting title that tells the audience nothing about the film.
> "John Carter" is a very bland, unexciting title that tells the audience nothing about the film. Lmao, and would you say the same about John Wick? John Wick is an equally bland title that tells you nothing about the movie. But because the movie was great, the title is now synonymous with the quality. John Carter the actual movie is beyond mediocre. Don’t blame the title for that lol
If I was told I had to spend the day with a stranger I would only be able to pick by name and it was between John Carter and John Wick, John Wick wins. Small seemingly innocuous details can alter the perception of things. John Wick excites more than John Carter.
Yup, John Wick sounds vaguely exciting or at least interesting. John Carter sounds like he's in his late 50's and has an office job
I immediately thought of John Carter when I saw this post.
The first book is called A Princess of Mars. Really lean the marketing into DT in a slave Leia style bikini, not sure how that fails.
If they wanted to keep John Carter in the title, they could call it "John Carter and the Princess of Mars" which sounds like a schlocky sci-fi title which is what the movie totally is.
Should've been more faithful to the books: everyone's nude on Mars.
The premise of “65” looks good but the title is lazy as hell
Should be "66", but that's nitpicking.
I think 65 Million would’ve been better
If you asked me what a movie called "65" is about I'd assume it's some gritty biopic of hippies or the Vietnam War.
Sorcerer
Great example. The box office failure of the film is frequently blamed on the title. Wages of Fear, like the original French film, would have been much better.
It came out the same weekend as star wars, I don't think the name was the problem
But it didn't help...
Came here looking for this one. Besides the unintended associations with The Exorcist, it’s a very bizarre title to begin with.
Army of Darkness should’ve been titled “The Medieval Dead” (original title)
Thats a great idea to keep the franchise's naming convention
Army of Darkness is a fucking awesome title.......for any other movie featuring an undead army. Army of Boneheads would be more fitting for this movie 🤣 But admittedly The Medieval Dead probably wouldn't have worked so well in non-english speaking countries.
Eh, they called it Captain Supermarket in Japan anyway.
"The Man with the Chainsaw hand" in Germany. ("Der Mann mit der Kettensägenhand")
Oh my God
Plane..
Plane: A Gerard Butler Transportation Cinematic Universe Movie
A sequel has already been greenlit: Ship. No joke.
I can’t wait for the Simpson joke “this is exactly like ship but on a plane”
Only a few months earlier: Ambulance We're entering the "Mode of Transport" era
Karate Kid (2010) should've kept it's original title Kung Fu Kid which a few countries were lucky enough to get. But they wanted to make sure everyone knew it was related to the original movies.
still being so adamant to call it the karate kid when there is no karate involved is just a massive mistake tbh, they must have known they were working on a complete flop of a film to have to stick to that title the way they did
This is a really good answer. If it had just presented the guise of being a different movie I bet it would be much better received despite keeping almost the exact same plot (similar to Creed). Instead the title makes it so it'll always be considered worse than the original, while also just being a flat out lie lol.
Wet Hot American Summer, but primarily because I was late turning it in to Blockbuster as a teenager and my mom got a notice that “Wet Hot…” was late and thought I was renting porn…
The only reason I watched it is because I was like 14 and saw the name on a movie channel late at night and thought there would be hella boobs. So glad I did because it’s one of my all time favorites.
Came for boobs and all you got was Chris Melloni’s bare ass. Now of your excuse me, I’m going to fondle my sweaters.
Did you just say “dick cream”?
I said stick team.
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Or even Now You See Me: Now You Don't so they've still got the first movie in the title. Maybe they were worried people would joke about not seeing the film?
[Harmon's rant on this is fantastic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXdHBP6mgdE)
Or Now You See Mee Too!
And the prequel: I’ll be seeing you
thats how we end up with all the dodgy titles given as examples in this thread though. one minute we all universally say the name does not make sense or that they should not go so deep into naming something that has a very obvious name already, but then say its ok for ones like this because it is a good title and its funny or whatever.. but that is exactly what the people in charge think about all the other films that should have just been named properly lol, they think they are being smart or clever when we are trying to tell them thats not the case at all
Yeah lol, imagine the alternate world where they called the movie "Now You Don't", it flops and gets memed on and joked about incessantly because of it.
Small Soldiers should have been named Toy Soldiers and Toy Soldiers should have been named Small Soldiers.
I think small soldiers is the first movie I have a memory of watching at the cinema. I had little army toy guys too that were almost the same as the characters in small soldiers and I loved it so much haha. I remember being worried that my dad was going to make us leave because it was too ‘grown up’ lol
I really liked Disappointment Blvd. and was sad to see Beau is Afraid is the actual name. Still hyped for it either way
You could swap the names of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywaker and both movies would work.
I'm pretty sure you can swap all the names of all the sequels and it still works. Ep. 7 = The Last Jedi (searching for Luke - the last true jedi) Ep.8 = The Rise of Skywalker (Luke rises from hiding and "fights" Kylo Ren) Ep.9 = The Force Awakens (or re-awakens actually. Rey brings back the Jedi after Luke's death in ep.8) Not saying its better that way, but it technically still works.
I saw a video a while ago where someone swapped the titles of all the main series movies and it made a lot more sense
Apart from Episode 2 most of the mainline Star Wars movies have titles vague enough to where they can be swapped around like this
I'd say 2 and 5 are the ones you can't swap at all. 1 is petty limited too. I guess it would work for 2 and 3 seeing how the big threat is still hidden to the heroes for most of them, but it makes the most sense for 1.
Operation Fortune...[checks notes]...Ruse de Guerre
Quantum of Solace. Huh.
iota of peace smidge of calm
miniscule serenity
microdose of zen
Modicum of Tranquility
I like that title haha.
Yeah, it’s hella poetic. I’ll take that any day over “CHARACTER NAME” x 1000.
In the original short story, the title has an explanation.
Chairman of the Board should have been called Box Office Poison
Chairman of the bored.
Reminds me of that tragedy
911? That's a terrible name for an airline.
Are you guys talking about Melrose Place?
RIP Norm
I didn’t even know he was sick.
Nine and a half seconds.
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To be fair, the title is one of the best things about that movie.
To be accurate, should've been "Do Not Watch This. No, We Really Mean It. This Means You Person Who Enjoys Bad Movies." I very rarely find a movie to be wholly bad, but I couldn't find a thing to like about it, and I like Banderas and Liu in almost anything.
That anagrams to "A Scribe's Slick Velvets."
World War Z is a legitimately good zombie movie. Just not a good World War Z adaptation. Literally name it anything else and it would’ve been better off.
I was just thinking this. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it. The only relationship to the book is its about zombies, and they occasionally call them zekes. The similarities stop there. I was really frustrated by the movie because of how much I loved the book and how they took nothing from it.
The book really needs to be a medium budget HBO show. The structure is just way more episodic.
A couple that come to mind: Million Dollar Baby - sounds like a 30s musical, and not a very good one. The Artist - incredibly vague, and not really that applicable to the story.
I agree with the first one, not the second. I like that title, though agree it tells nothing about the film.
STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT
Fine! We won't name any more movies, geez...
The 3rd Evil Dead movie, called Army of Darkness, was supposed to be called Medieval Dead! Would have been the perfect title.
Medieval Dead is a GREAT title. I always hear Army of Darkness and for some reason, think of the Hearts of Darkness documentary about Apocalypse Now LOL
It Comes at Night
Well some people really really hate spoilers. So, "The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford ".
Same with The Man Who Killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot.
Phenomenal movie. Close to my favourite ever.
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Then you will love "John dies at the end. "
**Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)** They should've never associated that animated movie with the **Final Fantasy** franchise!
Associating it with FF is the only reason it sold a single ticket
John carter, they had a ton of amazing book titles to go with and they just used the character's generic name. At least try to cram the word “mars” in there somewhere. for reference these are the book titles, they could have used any of them and it would have been better. A Princess of Mars The Gods of Mars The Warlord of Mars Thuvia, Maid of Mars The Chessmen of Mars The Mastermind of Mars A Fighting Man of Mars Swords of Mars Synthetic Men of Mars Llana of Gathol John Carter of Mars
There were a lot of reasons why it ended up with the name it did. Several people were so sure that men wouldn't want to see a movie with "princess" in the title so that one was dropped. They were also insistent that women wouldn't go see the movie if "of mars" was included because "women don't watch sci-fi" and a title with Mars in the name would scare them off. And another big reason is that movies with "Mars" in the title have notoriously done really bad at the box office so the studio (who had just recently had another movie Mars Needs Moms do poorly) wanted to distance themselves from that as well. In the end though I think the title is probably the least of them films worries. It was notoriously badly marketed by a studiohead that had no idea what he was doing and intentionally stopped them from making the movie actually look good, by producing lack luster trailers and just assuming that a shirtless hunk on the poster would sell enough tickets. They were also trying to recover from a couple other similar styled movies that failed to perform, so they intentionally avoided promoting the movie for what it was in fear. They were also in the midst of buying the Star Wars stuff so there was little motivation for them to put stock into a "competiting" spaced theme saga. It could have been a great movie with a cool name but the studio did pretty much all they could to make sure that it wasn't going to successful.
John Marter
BTW it’s awful how they translate some movie names in Russian. E.g. Hangover was translated as “Bachelor party in Vegas”; “Frozen”-> “Cold heart”; “Silver linings playbook”-> “My boyfriend is a psycho” 😳😏🤯
In China, the movie Nixon was called “The Big Liar”
Considering that Batman and Superman barely fight and team up, the title could’ve been Batman and Superman: Dawn of Justice
For those that didn't see it, the trailers pulled a classic bait and switch, it turned out to just be a courtroom drama. Batman v Superman was the name of the court case.
Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness should have been titled "Dr. Strange and The Wacky World of Inverted Stop Lights".
But you wouldn't get the whole, "Dr. Strange and the M.O.M." Yeah, the writers were trying to be cute with the title. You can almost feel them elbowing you in the ribs while saying, "Get it? Get it? Because it's about Wanda. She's a mom trying to find her kids at no matter what the cost."
Holy fuck I never put that together. Consider my mind blown.
Technically it's Doctor Strange IN the Multiverse of Madness... which alludes to an entirely different plot
>Consider my mind blown Consider yourself Black Bolt
I did not get this until now
As clever as Metroid: Other M.
I really hate that name because it led one to believe that it’s gonna be a crazy movie with a lot of multiverse shit and that’s not it at all. What’s worse is that I watched this a week after *Everything, Everywhere, All At Once*, and that movie came across like the *real* multiverse of madness.
The King's Man. You're not clever.. just confusing.
Should have just been Kingsman: 1918
Is that the next Yellowstone spinoff?
No it's the sequel to 1917
How is that confusing? Its called The King's Man because it is about the first and only Kingsman at the time. The one that started it all.
Any movie titled "Possession." There are too many of these already.
I don't know how anyone had the nerve to name their movie Possession after 1981.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Seems like one of Tom Cruise’s lesser known films even though it’s one of the better ones. Surprising since they originally decided against using the title from the manga it’s made from (All You Need Is Kill) and still couldn’t nail down a solid name.
Live. Die. Repeat.
Don't downvote this guy. In some countries, it was with this name, instead of translated. I don't know why!
Marketing. https://www.slashfilm.com/552427/why-edge-of-tomorrow-got-retitled-live-die-repeat/
They should have just stay with a single title but I'll never understand the people that think "All You Need is Kill" being a good title.
The people that think that are just pretentious weaboo purists who don't realise it just comes across as weird broken English and a joke to most people. One of my mum's friends lived in Japan when the original light novel came out and he posted a photo of an ad of it and captioned it "ah, is that all you need?" lmao. It definitely isn't a good title.
Weaboo purists having unselfaware questionable taste that wouldn’t be understandable to the vast majority of audiences? On my internet? It’s more likely than you think. News at 11.
I got into a long sort of argument a while back about how dumb All You Need is Kill sounds. Like that's clearly a product of someone who doesn't speak great English, but some people were really defending how cool and great it sounded.
Edge of Tomorrow is a great title. It's definitely better than the other two.
Octopussy
I expected either a cat with 8 legs, or a furry octopus with claws.
Idk it’s one of the only old bonds movies I know about lol
Terry Gilliams Brazil. It's a really awful name that does nothing to explain what the movie is about. There were many better choices.
Ikr? Had to look up why it was even named Brazil, as I'd forgotten the details: > Brazil was developed under the titles The Ministry and 1984 ½, the latter a nod not only to Orwell's original Nineteen Eighty-Four but also to 8½ directed by Federico Fellini; Gilliam often cites Fellini as one of the defining influences on his visual style.[25] During the film's production, other working titles floated about, including The Ministry of Torture, How I Learned to Live with the System—So Far,[26] and So That's Why the Bourgeoisie Sucks,[27] before settling with Brazil, relating to the name of its escapist signature tune. Pretty much *any* of those titles would have made more sense for this film.
I love how the name would be meaningless to the characters, just as so many things in their world seem meaningless and arbitrary
Agreed. All it does is make conversations confusing.
Wow I SO disagree! The song and the movie are together in my head forever. It’s a whole mood!
Probably a bad translation but the German film titled "The Nasty Girl" sounds like a softcore porn but is actually about a German small town covering up their involvement in supporting Nazis and the Third Reich.
> "The Nasty Girl" Das schreckliche Mädchen. "The Terrible Girl" would have been more accurate
I cannot believe I haven’t seen anyone in this thread mention The Suicide Squad (2021)— which is NOT the same movie as Suicide Squad (2016) Who the hell thought that was a good idea?
The Princess Bride. I just feel many young boys were put off, thinking it was a different sort of story altogether.
Is this a kissing book?
I don't mind so much.
Agreed. Even decades later as an adult recommending this movie to people who have never seen it, men tend to balk at the title. The book author/movie screenwriter William Goldman named it that because he asked his young daughters what his next book should be about; one said a princess, the other said a bride, so that became the title.
100%. Us boys in my youth group were PISSED when we were told the title and that it was the movie for movie night. We spent all day goofing on the name and obnoxiously criticizing the choice. Then once we watched we we all loved it.
But… isn’t that the whole point of the prologue?
You’ve got to get past the name to watch the prologue.
That sort of the appeal isn't it? The subversion from sappy fairytale into an awesome, funny adventure for all ages? The title enforces that.
I've heard so many people get "The Princess Bride" and "The Princess Diaries" mixed up.
Yep I fell into that group
I am Legend should have been called anything besides things that associate it with the source material it mutilated IE Omega Man, Neville, Guy is actually the bad guy…anything, please.
I am Legend is an amazing movie that was pretty much ruined by its association with the book. If you haven't read the book then it's one of the best post-apocalypse movies out there and Will Smith honestly should have been nominated for an Oscar for his performance, he fucking carried that movie.
Room. "You mean THE Room?"
John Carter. Still makes me sad such a great movie got such terrible marketing.
That needed to have Mars in the title somewhere. "John Carter" is Noah Wyle on ER. I have no idea what a movie about him would be but it doesn't look like whatever this trailer is showing.
**Buena Vista pictures presents; Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A** ***Princess of Mars*****."** Buena Vista, not Disney, not a juvenile movie. Edgar Rice Burroughs- recognizable name, classic author Princess - fantasy Mars - Sci fi. All this adds up to "Grown up, or at least all-ages, move based on a classic work of fiction that blends sci-fi and fantasy." That title alone would have sold more tickets without actual marketing than *John fucking Carter the doctor from ER maybe, some fucking guy, or whatever.*
I've never watched it because of *that* marketing.
Just wrote out a long reply naming this movie before scrolling, deleted so not knocked for copying. I remember seeing this without being named in the trailer...I was like I know what this movie will be! Then "John Carter" showed up as the title and I was flabbergasted. Why would they name it that over so many better choices!? You could not have picked a less interesting title if you tried.
It was also released the same time as Jack Reacher. Kept getting them mixed up.
................ great movie?
According to Reddit anyway
My takeaway after watching that was Overheard at the John Carter pitch meeting "It's basically 3 hours of Taylor Kitsch jumping around." "Will it at least look cool?" "Oh, god no." "Here's 300 million dollars."
I was in my early 20s when it came out, and thought it was solidly okay. That said, I could actually legit imagine someone who was 12 or younger at the time having really enjoyed it, and having a lot of nostalgia for it. Rose tinted glasses and all that.
The book series was known as (translated) "Space Tarzan" which always confused me as ... well the man is not Tarzan.
It might be because of the author being the writer of Tarzan or just the idea of having a demi-god as the main character. Tarzan, contrary to the disney movie, was not at all a dim-witted jungle man. Quite the opposite, almost like The Monster in Frakenstein, He was superhuman, learned multiple languages and overall was just portrayed as adonis like.
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. They did change the title during the theatrical run to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey or something.
"Edge of tomorrow" should have went with "Groundhog Day 2: alien invasion"
cinderella man
True. Doesn't scream boxing movie
It Comes At Night. Spoiler:Nothing actually comes at night
I think the "it" here is paranoia. I love this movie and the marketing but I can definitely understand why so many people were frustrated
"Freddy Got Fingered"
"Life is Beautiful" would have been more aptly titled "Holocaust Clown."
Except "Holocaust Clown" is a much more apt title for Jerry Lewis's unreleased "The Day the Clown Cried"
I had enough friends ask me when I recommended Baby Driver if it was actually about a baby who could drive. I always answered, yes.
jiu jitsu starring Nic Cage. Had nothing to do with jiu jitsu
Michael Clayton is a fairly decent movie shrouded by an incredibly boring title. "Hey, do you wanna watch, uh... Sexy Space Murderers, Eternal Face War, or ... some guy's legal name?"
“October Sky”. It should have kept the name of the book it was based on “Rocket Boys”.
At least it’s an anagram of it.
🤯
The Big Sick.
Pop star: Never Stop Never Stopping Made it too closely associated with Bieber
The title wasn’t the problem. It was the bad marketing that killed it. Sandberg himself said that they were completely puzzled by it. (They had no input).