Feb 18 2009A Couple On-the-Nose Title Changes
If you've been confused about some upcoming movies because their concepts weren't completely spelled out in their titles, I've got some helpful, clarifying news for you. Nottingham, Ridley Scott's cryptically-titled Robin Hood tale, has been re-titled Robin Hood. Not as easy-to-understand as my title choice, The One About Robin Hood, but probably catchier.
Also, it appears Ricky Gervais's comedy about the invention of lying, previously titled This Side of the Truth, appears to have been renamed Invention of Lying and pushed back to an undetermined date in 2010. Hardly a death knell, but hardly a mitzvah.
(Thanks, Kevin.)
Reader Comments
1. nun - February 18, 2009 12:06 PM
oh.. god. First
2. davidlove - February 18, 2009 12:51 PM
wow..those poor guys,many people talked about this when we chat online on tall dating site___T a l l m in g l e . c o m___where has many humor guys and fashion girls,even hot models.
3. Mr. Jones - February 18, 2009 2:12 PM
"Nottingham, Ridley Scott's cryptically-titled Robin Hood tale, has been re-titled Robin Hood."
This is nothing new. Hollywood also gives us these five-minute long movie trailers where they completely lay out the plot in all three acts. I guess the thinking is that audiences need to know exactly what is going to happen in a movie before they will pay $12 for a movie ticket.
Since we all have the attention span of goldfish, why do they bother any more with this "acting" stuff, where motivations are conveyed in other ways except expository dialogue and screen-crawls? Hell, at the beginning of each scene, each actor should look directly to the audience and keep us up to speed of what is going on.
4. scholar boy - February 18, 2009 3:53 PM
Mr. Jones - actually, that's what they used to do in Shakespeare's time. Best example is Romeo and Juliet. Check it - at the beginning of every act, someone sums up what's just happened (sometimes under the pretense of informing another character, but it JUST HAPPENED ON STAGE 2 minutes ago!), and then at the end Friar Laurence recaps the entire play (for those who missed an important plot point while they were in the can).
But I agree about trailers.It used to only be Disney that did that (or at least they were the worst). Now everyone seems to do it. Or the opposite - 102 images in 10 seconds and then 20 seconds of title. WTF?
5. sully - February 18, 2009 10:41 PM
Executive: Okay, so your movie is about the invention of lying... and it's called "this side of the truth," right?
Ricky G: Yeah, that's right ol' chap. Why the query?
Executive: Well... It just doesn't really make sense to have the word "truth" in a movie about lying...
RG: ...
Executive: I think it should be called "The Invention of Lying," so no one gets confused. Fellas, how do you feel about that?
Other execs in room, speaking generally at the same time:
-Oh yeah
-yep
-uh-huh
-great title change
-yeah, i was confused about that too, i missed when you pitched the story
-what's a queery? is that a gay?
RG: ...
That's how that meeting went down
6. B - February 19, 2009 10:03 AM
Oh man - I'm so glad they cleared those up for me. I was so confused.
:-/
7. Mr. Jones - February 19, 2009 11:44 AM
SB:
Good point - from what I understand, they did this because of the "rogue's gallery" of yobs who showed up to the theatre drunk, talked loudly during the performance (which the actors had to shout over)... and Shakespear loaded his plays with sex and violence to keep them amused.
Not too different from today, hmmm?