10 Movies That Changed Their Titles
Shoutout to Marvel because changing the ‘Thunderbolts*’ title was a bold marketing move that has totally paid off. In this list we’re going to discuss that change & 9 other films that changed their title after release. While the change to ‘Thunderbolts*’ doesn’t appear to be official, a lot of these were official changes. Some of them for marketing & some for continuity within a larger franchise. Let’s get into the list.
‘Thunderbolts*’ to ‘The New Avengers’- I almost didn’t want to put this to avoid spoilers, but anyone that cares about this has either already seen the movie or is aware of the change. I thought it was brilliant that this film incorporated the asterisk into it’s title and then the ending title care changing was great. Then Marvel decided to change all their major posters & billboards in an awesome move.
‘Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One’ to ‘Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning’- Well originally, the final installment of this epic franchise was going to be titled ‘Dead Reckoning Part Two,’ but it was later changed to ‘The Final Reckoning.’ With this change it really didn’t make sense for Dead Reckoning to hold onto Part One, so they just dropped it.
‘Star Wars’ to ‘Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope’- The most famous example of a movie title change has got to be from the saga that occurred a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. All three films in the original trilogy received title changes once the prequels came out. The original film became ‘Episode IV- A New Hope’ while it’s sequels, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ & ‘Return of the Jedi’ added Star Wars: followed by their respective episode numbers, V & VI. Confusing.
‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ to ‘Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark’- Similar to ‘Star Wars,’ once Indiana Jones became the center of a prominent franchise, they added his moniker to align the first film with all of its sequels. Also known simply as ‘Raiders’ the title change really does make sense when the sequels are called Indiana Jones and the… ‘Temple of Doom,’ ‘Last Crusade,’ ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,’ & ‘Dial of Destiny.’
‘Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)’ to ‘Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey’- I doubt you even remember the existence of this 2020 DC film. But it does exist. And it originally was released with that super long title, though it was typically referred to as just Birds of Prey. After under performing at the box office DC changed the title of the film to include Margot Robbie’s popular character much more prominently. I would imagine they thought that would help it’s success, but alas, it did not.
‘Edge of Tomorrow’ to ‘Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow’- This Tom Cruise & Emily Blunt led sci-fi action film was originally released with a more straight forward title. But after the tagline & mantra of the film ‘Live Die Repeat’ rose in popularity, the studio added it into the marketing.
‘The Mighty Ducks’ to ‘The Mighty Ducks Are the Champions’- I didn’t include films that were released under different titles in other countries, because that’s just a completely different. But ‘The Mighty Ducks’ was released in some countries as ‘Champions.’ Then when the sequel was released it was released in the US as ‘D2: The Mighty Ducks’ was usually called ‘The Mighty Ducks 2’ but was released in other countries just as ‘The Mighty Ducks.’ So this prompted the original film to be retitled in those countries as ‘The Mighty Ducks Are the Champions’ to avoid confusion with it’s sequel. The first film has also been come to be known as ‘D1: The Mighty Ducks.’ I’m so confused.
‘Can a Song Save Your Life?’ to ‘Begin Again’- This 2013 film starring Mark Ruffalo & Keira Knightley was originally released with it’s lengthier title at festival showings at TIFF & Tribeca. The title apparently was very hard for people to remember so they rereleased it with a simpler one.
‘Ghostbusters’ to ‘Ghostbusters: Answer the Call’- I’m referring here to the 2016 Paul Feig ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, & Leslie Jones. The film was an utter flop and people grew very confused by the fact it had the same title as the original film, so the film began being marketed with it’s tagline, Answer the Call, now as a part of the title. It’s really pretty obsolete though as Sony decided to instead continue with the original continuity when they released ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ in 2021, abandoning this film & it’s characters all together.
‘The Princess and the Cobbler’ to ‘Arabian Knight’- Props to you if you’ve ever heard of either of those titles. This film was actually originally made with the title ‘The Thief and the Cobbler’ and was meant to be revolutionary to animation. Development began in 1964, but continuously stalled until it was taken over by Fred Calvert in 1992. Calvert retitle the film, changed a lot of the film, & released it in 1993. Then in 1995 the film was rereleased in 1995 as ‘Arabian Knight’ hoping to capitalize of the success from Disney’s ‘Aladdin.’ The rerelease featured a lot of changes, including an almost entirely new voice cast. Between it’s two releases, the film only grossed $600K on a $28 million budget, so it lives in infamy for that and for being one of the films with the longest ever production time.
