What’s in a name?
More than you know, if you ask any movie studio marketing exec who has racked his brains to come up with a funny, intriguing, scary or oddball film title able to pique moviegoers’ interest in roughly five words or less. If a movie’s title lazily says nothing or pretentiously says too much, it’s more than a little annoying.
A movie’s name should convey its concept, lure audiences in and endure over time–because no matter how good a film may be, its title can send it, screaming, to unwarranted ignominy forever. To wit, The Goonies.
Some movies are doomed for the video shelves simply by words used in their titles: Dangerous, Passion, Mortal, Fatal, Deadly, Damage and anything using Mom or Dad.
Honestly, no matter how attractive and talented Kate Winslet might be, how attracted were you to her movie Hideous Kinky? (That the film was based on a book with the same title is no excuse). How eager were you to take a chance on Life as a House, Brokedown Palace or Boiler Room? Did you take whatever Desperate Measures were necessary to find out How Stella Got Her Groove Back?
Such titular travesties have been happening for years–let’s not forget such ’90s hits Milk Money, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain, You’ve Got Mail and Boxing Helena. Going further back, it apparently didn’t occur to anyone that since E.T. stands for “extra terrestrial,” what they really named the movie was Extra Terrestrial the Extra Terrestrial.
More recently, Changing Lanes was lucky it did so well at the box office with such a crummy title. You can’t say Death to Smoochy‘s dubious title didn’t contribute to its complete failure, although frankly, that Robin Williams starred in it probably scared more people off than anything else.
Sometimes even a new name given to a movie isn’t much of an improvement. The upcoming Full Frontal starring Julia Roberts is slightly more enticing than How to Survive a Hotel Room Fire starring Julia Roberts, but just barely.
