Movies with multiple titles (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

Moved over from The Mitchells and the Machines thread:

This [The Mitchells and the Machines] was originally called Connected. It had trailers in theaters before they shut down last March. I saw the original trailer so many times I got sick of it. Sony made a deal with Netflix, and apparently retitled the film, after the pandemic hit.

Here is an old trailer with the original name on it:



I know that title changes during production aren't a new thing. However, I can't remember another situation where the film was actually renamed after it had already been marketed to audiences under a different title. I guess Revenge/Return of the Jedi with that poster that came out before they changed it, but even that wasn't as drastic of a change as this. And Star Wars was an already established blockbuster property, so people were going to show up for that no matter what Lucas decided to call it.

 

[DaveF]

I know that title changes during production aren't a new thing. However, I can't remember another situation where the film was actually renamed after it had already been marketed to audiences under a different title. I guess Revenge/Return of the Jedi with that poster that came out before they changed it, but even that wasn't as drastic of a change as this. And Star Wars was an already established blockbuster property, so people were going to show up for that no matter what Lucas decided to call it.

The best known to me is the Tom Cruise scifi thriller Edge of Tomorrow, then retitled Live Die Repeat for blu-ray.

 

[Malcolm R]

The best known to me is the Tom Cruise scifi thriller Edge of Tomorrow, then retitled Live Die Repeat for blu-ray.

I'm not sure that was an official retitle, but just the film's tagline being emphasized on the home video packaging as it provided a better explanation of the film than the cryptic Edge of Tomorrow.

Oddly, it was the studio that set the Edge of Tomorrow title. The film was originally called All You Need is Kill based on the original source material, but Doug Liman didn't really like it and reportedly the studio didn't think having the word "kill" in the title was good for marketing purposes, so they changed it. Doug Liman was the one who wanted the new title to be Live Die Repeat, but the studio elected to just use that as a tagline.

Supposedly the sequel, if it ever gets beyond writing and planning stages, will be called Live Die Repeat and Repeat.

 

[Lord Dalek]

I know that title changes during production aren't a new thing. However, I can't remember another situation where the film was actually renamed after it had already been marketed to audiences under a different title. I guess Revenge/Return of the Jedi with that poster that came out before they changed it, but even that wasn't as drastic of a change as this. And Star Wars was an already established blockbuster property, so people were going to show up for that no matter what Lucas decided to call it.

I can. Shrek 4's title was changed so late in the day that it was still Shrek Forever After on McDonalds Happy Meals.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I can. Shrek 4's title was changed so late in the day that it was still Shrek Forever After on McDonalds Happy Meals.

Huh? It still is Shrek Forever After.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Huh? It still is Shrek Forever After.

Wiki says it was originally going to be "Shrek Goes Fourth" but they changed the name to "SFA" in May 2009.

However, it appears that it ran as "Shrek: The Final Chapter" in some territories - maybe in those areas they changed the title late in the game?

 

[Lord Dalek]

Wiki says it was originally going to be "Shrek Goes Fourth" but they changed the name to "SFA" in May 2009.

However, it appears that it ran as "Shrek: The Final Chapter" in some territories - maybe in those areas they changed the title late in the game?

Yeah the US poster has the title as "Shrek The Final Chapter"

...and yet the original title of Shrek Forever After is buried in the credit block. So yeah last minute change.

 

[Jake Lipson]

It's only The Final Chapter until Universal gets around to ordering a fifth one which feels inevitable at some point.

My blu-ray copy identifies it as Shrek Forever After. "The Final Chapter" must have been a marketing department choice.

 

[Malcolm R]

It's only The Final Chapter until Universal gets around to ordering a fifth one which feels inevitable at some point.

My blu-ray copy identifies it as Shrek Forever After. "The Final Chapter" must have been a marketing department choice.

Yes, it may have been more of an attempt to publicize, "hey, this is the final Shrek movie so get to the theater and see it," rather than an official title.

"Final" means very little to Hollywood. There have been numerous "final" installments that were not.

 

[Cineman]

The Joker is Wild (1957) was re-released a few years later re-titled as All The Way due to the popularity of the Oscar-winning song featured in it sung by its star, Frank Sinatra.

And somewhere along the line Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) became Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I assume that was because its prequel and first sequel (and later one/s) had titles starting with the main character's name too, it was more in keeping with the updated and dressed up Saturday matinee cliff hanger serial concept of those movies and possibly also due to the advent and prevalence of Internet search and online purchasing sites where the studio would prefer all entries in the series to come up with a single search before you even type past the "J" in the last name of that character.

 

[Thomas T]

Billy Wilder's Ace In The Hole/The Big Carnival (1951).
William Dieterle's Devil And Daniel Webster/All That Money Can Buy (1941)

 

[Jake Lipson]

The best known to me is the Tom Cruise scifi thriller Edge of Tomorrow, then retitled Live Die Repeat for blu-ray.

The funny thing about that is that Edge of Tomorrow is still the title of the film in its presentation on home video. They emphasized "Live Die Repeat" (which had been the theatrical tagline) on the box art, which is why most people think that is the title. But if you're just looking at what the movie actually says, it's still Edge of Tomorrow on screen.

Edge of Tomorrow survives, kind of, on the bottom of the box art as a weird compound word type thing, but it's obviously not what WB wants people to see first when looking at this case.



This is one of those cases where I went with the steelbook variant (below) because I think the artwork on the standard release above is ugly. It also more prominently features the film's actual title.

 

[BobO'Link]

I never understood the title change on Edge of Tomorrow. Live Die Repeat just isn't that good or creative. Then... Edge of Tomorrow kind of sounds like a soap opera (very close to The Edge of Night), so...

Star Wars is now Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. I still call the first one "Star Wars".

Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn changed to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey

Captain America became Captain America: The First Avenger

Quite a few have alternate titles outside the US. Here are a few with the original foreign title then US title:

Dracula - Horror o f Dracula
Bay of Blood - Twitch of the Death Nerve
Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior
Witchfinder General - The Conqueror Worm

 

[Chip_HT]

Captain America became Captain America: The First Avenger

If you're going to include that, then you might as well include all of the placeholder titles for Marvel movies, like how Endgame was originally Infinity War Part II and later "Untitled Avengers Sequel" or how Black Panther II and Captain Marvel 2 were changed to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Marvels, respectively.

And technically, the movie was originally announced as The First Avenger: Captain America before flipflopping the subtitle. But all of that was done before shooting even began.

 

[Tommy R]

There was an early 90’s movie “Big Girls Don’t Cry, They Get Even”. On my VHS copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, this movie had a preview, but was titled as “Step Kids”.

 

[RJ992]

The original Black Christmas, aka Stranger in the House, aka Silent Night, Deadly Night.

 

[cadavra]

A couple of weeks after it opened, EMPEROR OF THE NORTH POLE had its last word removed. Apparently they believed people thought it took place there.

 

[B-ROLL]

Moved over from The Mitchells and the Machines thread:

This [The Mitchells and the Machines] was originally called Connected. It had trailers in theaters before they shut down last March. I saw the original trailer so many times I got sick of it. Sony made a deal with Netflix, and apparently retitled the film, after the pandemic hit.

Here is an old trailer with the original name on it:



I know that title changes during production aren't a new thing. However, I can't remember another situation where the film was actually renamed after it had already been marketed to audiences under a different title. I guess Revenge/Return of the Jedi with that poster that came out before they changed it, but even that wasn't as drastic of a change as this. And Star Wars was an already established blockbuster property, so people were going to show up for that no matter what Lucas decided to call it.

Revenge/Return of The Jedi was called Blue Harvest in production !

 

[rdimucci]

Dracula - Horror of Dracula

Christopher Lee had a lot of his films change titles when they moved from England/Europe to the States (sometimes years later):

The Treasure of San Teresa (1959) - Hot Money Girl (1962)
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) - Jekyll's Inferno - House of Fright
The City of the Dead (1960) - Horror Hotel (1962)
Beat Girl (1960) - Wild for Kicks (1961)
The Whip and the Body (1963) - What? (1965)
Circus of Fear (1966) - Psycho-Circus
Night of the Big Heat (1967) - Island of the Burning Damned (1971)
Theatre of Death (1967) - Blood Fiend
Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967) - Blood Demon (1969)
The Devil Rides Out (1968) - The Devil's Bride
The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968) - Kiss & Kill (1969)
Curse of the Crimson Alter (1968) - The Crimson Cult (1970)
The Bloody Judge (1970) - Night of the Blood Monster (1972)
Nothing But the Night (1973) - The Resurrection Syndicate (U.S. re-release)
The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973) - Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride (1978)
Death Line (1973) - Raw Meat

 

[B-ROLL]

Duck You Sucker! AKA A Fistful of Dynamite