Would you watch a movie called "Star Beast" or "The Lunch Bunch"? In a way, there's a good chance you already have. Not all movies got their title right the first time, including a handful of all-time classics.
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00:00Would you watch a movie called Starbeasts or The Lunch Bunch?
00:04In a way, there's a good chance you already have.
00:06Not all movies got their title right the first time, including a handful of all-time classics.
00:12While few people other than George Lucas himself had high hopes for the original Star Wars
00:16movie, the franchise was a full-blown pop culture phenomenon by the time production
00:20was underway for the third installment of the original trilogy.
00:24It's for that reason that Star Wars Episode VI, Return of the Jedi, was known by multiple
00:28names during production.
00:30To hide the true nature of the movie, it was given the vague title Blue Harvest, with members
00:35of the crew even wearing caps bearing that logo during production.
00:38And yes, that's why the season six premiere of Family Guy, a Star Wars parody, was given
00:43that name.
00:44But that wouldn't be the only thing that Return of the Jedi was called before the official
00:47name was finalized.
00:49For much of the rest of the production, the subtitle was Revenge of the Jedi.
00:53This got so far along that posters were made, and even an early trailer was released bearing
00:57that title.
00:58But Lucas ultimately decided that the concept of revenge is beneath the Jedi's principles,
01:04so Revenge soon became Return.
01:06Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.
01:14Revenge is much more suited to the dark side, which is why the ending of the prequel trilogy
01:18received the title Revenge of the Sith decades later.
01:23Few movies have done more to revitalize a stale genre than Scream.
01:26Horror movies never really went away, but the slasher subgenre had largely been left
01:31behind after the 80s.
01:32Much of the breakout success of Scream was due to its meta-storyline and ability to poke
01:37fun at the long-held tropes of scary movies while simultaneously leaning into them.
01:42So what better title for a scary movie about scary movies than, well, Scary Movie?
01:47Sure enough, screenwriter Kevin Williamson's original script for Scream was titled Scary
01:52Movie.
01:53With no production under that moniker, and like Return of the Jedi, the crew had already
01:57been gifted a bunch of swag branded with the movie's original name.
02:01But the studio didn't like Scary Movie, and changed the title to Scream instead.
02:06The general consensus among the crew was that they hated the new name at first, but eventually
02:10came around to appreciating it.
02:12Of course, the Wayans brothers went on to help themselves to the original production
02:15title for their horror film parody series, which became a hit in its own right and inspired
02:20several other movies with Movie in their titles.
02:24While various sources can't settle on what the original name was gonna be for Scary Movie
02:28before it took the original title for Scream, they all agree that it's some variation of
02:32Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween, with some versions adding a few more horror
02:36movie titles into the mix.
02:38This is a callback to the Wayans brothers' previous genre spoof, Don't Be a Menace to
02:42South Central or Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, which cleverly combined the names of
02:46the various 90s hood films that it was parodying.
02:49The tradition ended with Don't Be a Menace, after Scream If You Know wasn't exactly used
02:54for Scary Movie.
02:55But it was nearly revived for 2001's Not Another Teen Movie, following the trend of spoofing
03:00a specific movie genre.
03:02In this case, coming of age teen dramedies from the previous two decades, Not Another
03:06Teen Movie nearly got its own wordy title, incorporating the names of the movies it was
03:10skewering.
03:11In this case, it would've been 10 Things I Hate About Clueless Road Trips When I Can't
03:15Hardly Wait to Be Kissed.
03:17Is that what your generation considers… humor?
03:20Like Scary Movie, that title was abandoned in favor of a name that simply states the
03:24genre being parodied, followed by the word movie.
03:27One can only imagine what Date Movie, Epic Movie, Superhero Movie, and Disaster Movie
03:32might have been called if the original naming tradition had been kept alive.
03:37We have Homelander and Omni-Man nowadays, but the concept of what if a superhero was
03:41also a huge jerk was pretty novel in 2008.
03:45That was when Hancock was released, centered around an abrasive alcoholic with superhuman
03:49abilities.
03:50Part of the fun was that he was portrayed by Will Smith, who at the time was still mostly
03:54known for portraying wholesome, do-gooder types.
03:57Unfortunately, Hancock falls apart about halfway through, with multiple plot twists involving
04:02amnesiac immortals who are thousands of years old.
04:05But that's nothing compared to what was originally intended for the character.
04:08A major aspect of John Hancock in the original version of the script was that he couldn't
04:12finish the act of sex with a woman, as doing so would literally kill her.
04:16To go along with that bizarre character trait, the original title was Tonight He Comes.
04:21How writer and future Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan thought that was going to fly
04:25for a major studio film is anyone's guess, but cooler heads prevailed, and that part
04:30of the story was toned down while the title was replaced completely.
04:34It was changed first to John Hancock, and eventually just Hancock.
04:39If you've ever seen a teen movie from the 1980s, you've probably seen a few members
04:43of the Brat Pack in action.
04:44There really didn't seem to be particularly rigid guidelines as to who was a member of
04:48the group of young actors, but the two films at the center of it were The Breakfast Club
04:52and St. Elmo's Fire.
04:54That said, if filmmaker John Hughes, who made more Brat Pack-adjacent films than anyone
04:58else, would've had his way, we'd be talking about The Lunch Bunch instead of The Breakfast
05:03Club.
05:04Despite sounding like a cartoon about kid superheroes with food-based abilities, for
05:08a certain John Mulaney Netflix special, The Lunch Bunch was indeed the original title
05:12of Hughes' iconic 1985 coming-of-age drama about a group of teens finding common ground
05:18during Saturday detention.
05:19What's especially odd is that Hughes already had another, better food-adjacent name for
05:23a detention group from his own past.
05:25A friend of his who went to a different high school was part of a group called, you guessed
05:29it, The Breakfast Club.
05:30It's not clear when he decided to change the title, but thankfully he did before it was
05:34too late.
05:35"...T, B, and J with the crusts cut off.
05:38Well, Brian, this is a very nutritious lunch."
05:42The title Alien tells you everything you need to know about the 1979 classic going in, and
05:47it definitely delivers on its promise.
05:49It's a title so perfect that, when it came time for a sequel, incoming director James
05:54Cameron simply added an S to it.
05:56Without digging into the subtext of what Alien could truly mean, it's easy to write it off
06:00as an example of a generic working title that never got changed during production.
06:05In fact, Alien had previously been called by two other names as it went through its
06:09various stages of production.
06:11The original story treatment that would serve as the basis for the movie was titled Memory,
06:16and didn't actually feature an alien at all.
06:18Once the movie's production got underway, it was then known as Starbeast, acknowledging
06:22the menacing intergalactic creature that was now the film's big bad.
06:26Eventually, that too was axed in favor of the much simpler and far more evocative Alien.
06:31It's definitely a good thing, because Starbeast vs. Predator doesn't have the same ring to
06:36it.
06:38People who went to the theater to see singer Adam Levine's film acting debut ordered tickets
06:41to begin again, but that wasn't its name when it was making the rounds at film festivals.
06:45The 2013 musical comedy-drama starring Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, and the Maroon 5
06:51frontman had a bit of a longer title when it screened Tiff and Tribeca, Can a Song Save
06:55Your Life?
06:56That's not a question.
06:57That's the original name of the movie.
06:59You can tell a lot about a person by what's on their playlist.
07:02I know you can.
07:03That's what's worrying me.
07:04Director John Carney's movie is all about how the two main characters collaborate on
07:08music and their shared love of the art form, but Begin Again doesn't necessarily make that
07:12obvious.
07:13Can a Song Save Your Life?
07:14definitely sets the tone a bit better, but considering that Carney's previous musical
07:19was a smashing success with the simple title once, that seemingly wasn't a major concern.
07:24Poor reactions from test audiences meant that, when the film was purchased by The Weinstein
07:28Company for theatrical distribution, its new and final name, Begin Again, was already
07:33in place.
07:35From his early days as one of the filmmakers behind the indie boom of mid-1990s, Kevin
07:39Smith established himself as a writer-director with a unique voice.
07:43His first eight movies, from 1994's Clerks to 2006's Zack & Miri Make a Porno, indeed
07:49all saw him serve both roles, among others.
07:51At that point, Smith took a stab at being a studio director for hire when he took on
07:55his first project with a script he didn't write.
07:592010's Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, would also be the last time.
08:03In addition to getting a chance to work with one of his action movie heroes, Smith also
08:06took on the buddy cop comedy in part because of its original title, A Couple of Dicks.
08:11Though the name hearkened back to the era of classic detective mysteries, which often
08:15saw the characters referred to with that term, TV networks weren't too keen on advertising
08:19a movie with such a dirty-sounding title.
08:22After the studio was informed that the movie could only be advertised on television after
08:269 p.m., a name change was inevitable.
08:28Smith contemplated quitting if the name was changed, but he didn't go through with it.
08:32At first, the proposed new name was A Couple of Cops, but things were brought back to pun
08:37territory when the powers-that-be ultimately settled on Cop Out.
08:41There have been many examples of films that had to make major changes due to tragic events
08:46that occurred sometime between production and release.
08:49Numerous movies had to make alterations as a result of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, for
08:53like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, which originally involved Peter Parker spinning a web between
08:58the Twin Towers.
08:59As for the 2012 sci-fi comedy The Watch, its original name lost its luster following the
09:03shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, who was a member of the Neighborhood Watch
09:08for the area Martin was walking through at the time of the incident.
09:11With the attention and controversy that the case was getting, it wasn't exactly an ideal
09:16time to release a movie — a comedy, no less — with the title Neighborhood Watch.
09:20In addition to shortening the name to just The Watch, 20th Century Fox also changed the
09:25focus of the movie's commercials and trailers to be less about the Neighborhood Watch members
09:29themselves, and to be more about the alien presence that they end up fighting.
09:33"...the Neighborhood Watch, as always, is watching the neighborhood for aliens."
09:42Despite the repetitive nature of the title, it's nearly impossible to imagine E.T. the
09:46Extra-Terrestrial being known by any other name.
09:49Steven Spielberg's first real family film proved that he could apply his talents in
09:53ways that both children and their parents could enjoy.
09:56But even though the title ended up being a slam dunk, the project went through several
09:59titles before its release.
10:01The film was originally called E.T. and Me.
10:03Studio execs weren't happy at first with the screenplay for the proposed movie, which may
10:07have led Spielberg to change the title as well.
10:10The shooting title for E.T. was actually A Boy's Life, which Spielberg used to preserve
10:15the film's secrecy while production was underway.
10:17Some also considered Night Skies to be an early alternate title, owing to the fact that
10:21it was the name of a previous, much darker alien contact story that Spielberg had been
10:25developing before pivoting to E.T.
10:28Some story elements intended for Night Skies ultimately got used for E.T., with other aspects
10:33injected into different Spielberg-produced projects.
10:37American Pie was the perfect title for the 1999 sex comedy starring Jason Bicks, making
10:42a lot of people think that it represented all American values until they actually watched
10:47the movie.
10:48Not only does the name fit the movie perfectly, but it's also allowed for similarly titled
10:51sequels and spinoffs like American Wedding and American Reunion.
10:55Untitled teenage sex comedy, which can be made for under $10 million that studio readers
11:00will most likely hate but I think you will love, just doesn't have the same ring to it.
11:04But that's what was on the title page of the script that Adam Hurt left on the desk of
11:07various Hollywood executives to sell them on his raunchy romp.
11:11It was clearly never intended to be the movie's real title, but it's still clear what it was
11:15called when it got its inevitable green light.
11:17Even so, American Pie wasn't its first real title.
11:20That honor belongs to East Great Falls High, named after the fictional school the characters
11:25attend.
11:26It's also worth noting that several websites have claimed that American Pie was also known
11:29as Comfort Food at some point during production, but there isn't actually any credible sourcing
11:34to back this up.