MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel. "Shrek," "Hitch," Gattaca," what's in a name, a movie name? Well, the question in Hollywood has nothing to do with smelling as sweet by any other name. As our critic Bob Mondello asks: Would that rose, by any other name, sell as many tickets?
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: On a trip to Latin America recently, I saw a theater poster for a musical direct from Broadway called "La Novicia Rebelde." Now, I'm pretty good with Broadway titles, but this Spanish one - literally something like "The Rebel Nun" - wasn't ringing a bell until I saw the credits at the bottom for Rodgers & Hammerstein. Suddenly, I could see a whole flock of nuns singing about how to solve a problema like Maria.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "LA NOVICIA REBELDE")
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (as characters) (Singing in foreign language)
MONDELLO: Now, as titles go, "The Rebel Nun" isn't much like "The Sound of Music," but someone clearly decided it would tell Latin-American audiences what the show was about, which is, of course, the point of titles, even when translation isn't an issue. Book titles, for instance, often fall by the wayside as projects work their way to the multiplex. Take the classic science-fiction story "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" That didn't sound nearly ominous enough for what Ridley Scott was putting on screen.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "BLADE RUNNER")
RUTGER HAUER: (as Roy Batty) Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
MONDELLO: So "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" became "Bladerunner." A few years later, test groups thought the title "Shoeless Joe" suggested a story about a homeless person, so for the screen, that baseball novel got rechristened "Field of Dreams." And anyone want to argue that D.W. Griffith didn't know what he was doing when he called his silent epic about the Deep South "The Birth of a Nation"?
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE BIRTH OF A NATION")
MONDELLO: The book it was based on, which glorified the Ku Klux Klan, was titled "The Clansman," not quite as universal. Griffith remained conscious of the power of titles. To atone for the public furor over the racism in "Birth of a Nation," his next epic was a morality tale that he called "Intolerance."
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE BIRTH OF A NATION")
MONDELLO: Sometimes, movie projects go into production with dummy titles that no one expects to make it into release. The film that made Julia Roberts a star, "Pretty Woman," was originally called "Three Thousand" because that's what her call-girl character charged Richard Gere: $3,000 for the night. And back in the 1990s, there was a script that got shopped around Hollywood with the descriptive but cumbersome moniker "Teenage Sex Comedy That Can Be Made for Under 10 Million Dollars, That Your Reader Will Love But the Executive Will Hate."
Once it got green-lit, the producers opted for something a little shorter that would highlight the film's most memorable scene: "American Pie." On one occasion, it was a typo that turned a mediocre title into a much better one. Pierce Brosnan's second stint as 007 was originally going to be called "Tomorrow Never Lies." But a secretary mistyped a single letter one day, the producers loved it, and her mistake stuck.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOMORROW NEVER DIES")
SHERYL CROW: (Singing) Tomorrow never dies.
MONDELLO: Often, a lot of care and consideration go into title changes that don't make much difference: "Predator" instead of "Hunter," say, or Pixar's "The Incredibles" instead of "The Invincibles" or Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" instead of "The Cut-Whore Killings." OK, that last one is probably an improvement. But research established that men didn't like the title "The Last First Kiss" for a Will Smith movie, so they renamed it "Hitch." Not sure why that's better.
And there's nothing saying producers will only change titles to give their films extra oomph. George Lucas famously reconsidered the title for his third "Star Wars" movie after the posters were printed and changed "Revenge of the Jedi" to "Return of the Jedi," saying that revenge was not a Jedi concept. And then there's that classic Steven Spielberg hit "A Boy's Life." Not ringing any bells? Well, it made it pretty far into production. Try putting the words "A Boy's Life" into imdb.com and see what pops up.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL")
HENRY THOMAS: (as Elliot) It's too bumpy. We'll have to walk from here. E.T.
MONDELLO: Yup, "A Boy's Life" became "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial." A bit more commercial, wouldn't you say? I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL")
THOMAS: (as Elliott) Not so high. Not so high.
SIEGEL: And you can find a list of many more films that changed titles on the way to the multiplex at npr.org/movies.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL")