The title of a movie as an important part of making a movie. Make it too generic and it won’t be appealing to many. Make it to cryptic and people will have no idea what your movie is about. I remember a few years back there was a lot of criticism about John Carter (I myself even took part in the fun: If movies were titled like John Carter) and recently the title of Edge of Tomorrow wasn’t shown prominently on the cover of the Blu Ray and DVD (it was Live.Die.Repeat). Then there are titles which might raise the wrong expectations: On Friday I saw Jake Gyllenhaal’s new movie Nightcrawler and when discussing the movie with a friend who didn’t know about it, he assumed it was about the X-Men character.
How important is a well chosen title to you and how does it factor into you being interested in it?
I don’t really think the title affects whether I want to see a film or not, as usually I pay attention more to the plot/casting/director, etc. But yeah, I think Live. Die. Repeat. is a far more compelling title than the bland Edge of Tomorrow.
An interesting title does wonders for a film, in my opinion. Edge of Tomorrow was certainly very bland – maybe that’s what caused it to struggle at the box office?
Hi, Nostra:
Nightcrawler is a lower tier X-Man. Who can dematerialize here and rematerialize there.
Don’t hold a lot of stock for opening titles. Though if done cleverly and well as in ‘Carnival of Souls’, ‘Bullitt’ and ‘The Andromeda Strain’. Or period based as in ‘Catch Me If You Can’. The effort can enhance a film’s overall acceptance and wherewithal.
The title is important. “John Carter” would probably have done better if it was called “John Carter of Mars”. As for “Nightcrawler”, I was like your friend before I read more about the movie.
It’s weird, I don’t think I actually pay attention to the name of the film. It’s merely a label that I can use to be able to identify what I’ve seen. I think….
The title is important from a marketing standpoint. It helps lots of people decide if a movie even sounds interesting enough to see. It’s the first thing a movie uses in an effort to entice us. Or, one of the first things along with who the star is, what it’s about, and/or who the director is. Once you’ve seen it then it doesn’t really matter anymore except as a label because you’ve already formulated an opinion on it.
I think the title is super important – it’s something you remember and highly associate with a film. A lot of movies just go with the person’s name – John Carter, Jerry MaGuire, Bridget Jones, etc. To me, it gets a bit old when they do that. A while back, I read a book on screenwriting, and the author kept talking about how they thought Legally Blonde was one of the best titles given to a film, because in just a couple words, it summed up the film without being too subtle or too obvious.
Regarding Edge of Tomorrow, I think the title isn’t too bad, although I would consider it highly memorable, or even work super well with the actual film. i agree that Live. Die. Repeat. might have actually worked better. But then again, there are probably too many people arguing over the appropriate title for a film. Good topic here!