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Have you ever flipped through your Netflix Instant watch and come across a movie that seems really familiar but the title seems weird? Or perhaps even found a movie where the title is one thing but the poster for the movie is something else? This happens more often than one might think and it’s not because all foreign countries are weird and America is always right (USA USA USA!). Far from it.
There’s actually several reasons for changing titles internationally. First and foremost is literal translations don’t always make sense abroad. Sometimes is to make the title “roll off the tongue”. And sometimes it’s a marketing gimmick to draw in ticket-buyers.
I don’t think people would love “Pretty Woman” as much if it was called “LA Prostitute” or “Dirty Dancing” if it was named “Statutory Rape Dancing.”
Often though, in translating for foreign viewers, any cleverness or wit applied to a title is lost because they just don’t get American idioms or colloquialisms. And more often than not, they flat-out spoil the movie. For example,
Thelma & Louise, a buddy film that shocked moviegoers with its suicide ending, was named An Unexpected End in Mexico.
And then some countries are just strange about it…
At least that’s better than the offensive French title of Rasta Rocket for Cool Runnings. I bet their second choice was Four Black Guys in a Bobsled. Even Ferris Bueller’s Day Off isn’t immune to a foreign title change. In Spain it’s called All in One Day and in Argentina it’s known as An Expert in Fun.
Wowsa. But, like I mentioned, sometimes it’s changed to be more appealing to the audience. Such as with The Dark Knight.
[It] is known as Il Cavaliere Oscuro in Italy – an exact translation. But in Mexico, it’s Caballero de la Noche, or Knight of the Night. “Caballero Oscuro sounds too evil in Spanish,” said moviegoer Viviana Hernndez as she waited for her film to start at Mexico City’s Altavista Mall. “People would think it was a horror movie.”
This article has a list of some great name changes, notably Play Me a Song For the Dead, Hunter of the Lost Treasure, and The Price of Zamunda (Searching for the Ideal Woman), or as we know them state-side Once Upon a Time in the West, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Coming to America.
And finally, the gimmick-y approach of some flicks is often a blatent attempt to get people to see the movie (sometimes again!). Best example is the Danny DeVito movie Renaissance Man. A box office flop (though I remember watching it several times on Primestar – yes, Primestar), they attempted to re-release this into theaters under the misnomer By the Book. Guess what? I didn’t work either: still nobody saw it.
Two excellent examples of title changes that actually help the movie to at least a small degree – by either shortening a long and difficult to remember title, or calling it something that happens to be ABOUT the movie – are Dr. Strangelove and Blade Runner. The full title for Dr. Strangelove is Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and to Love the Bomb. Try putting that on a T-Shirt. Well, now you could because it would be hipster-y and people would think it clever. But in 1964, forgedaboutit.
And, as most cinephiles know, Blade Runner was originally named after it’s source material Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Even having seen Blade Runner, I still wouldn’t know what the hell that was about. Honestly, I need to watch it again because I’m not sure I know what the movie is about in the first place.
American isn’t excluded from the list of title fucker-uppers. Two good examples of this are Vanilla Sky and Pan’s Labyrinth. Original Spanish titles were Open Your Eyes (Tom Cruise’s was a remake in English, btw) and The Labyrinth of the Faun. Much better. Open Your Eyes is about cryogenic sleep (everyone collectively says, “Ooooooooh. I get it.”). And I had no clue what Pan’s Labyrinth was about before I saw it. Again, not entirely sure I know now. I just know it’s really, really cool to watch.
This is a great Wikipedia list of some title changes from the UK to the US. My favorite is the last with the explanation “To avoid association with “horn” as a euphemism for “erection“.
Whew! Thank God we dodged that bullet!
Sources:
http://catchingabeat.blogspot.com/2011/05/foreign-titles-for-american-movies.html
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/movies/articles/2008/08/01/20080801movienames.html
http://myfilmviews.com/2011/09/30/translated-movie-titles-a-few-strange-examples/
http://www.frontroomcinema.com/thursday-list-top-10-films-changed-name-release/
Lincoln's Ramblings 