Movie Titles Alone Can Break Or Make Your Films, How?

Importance Of The Movie Titles

<img src="Movie-Titles-Bhushan-Mahadani.jpg" alt="Movie Titles Bhushan Mahadani">

Movie titles can make or break your film and that’s true. Lets dig  into it.  Your title is the first thing people are going to experience about your movie or script. People are not going to read your script or watch your movie unless they like the title. Please understand movie titles are the marketing tools and they should help you market your projects. Lets say if you are you have participated in a screenplay competition or you have submitted your screenplay to a studio, there are people call script reader, who are going to read your scripts. These script readers have thousands of scripts to read, so these are very busy people. In most cases script reader picks up a script, reads its title and if they don’t find it interesting he movies it to the bottom of the pile. Movie titles are supposed to grab his attention which will inspire him to read the script.

When you tell your friends that you are working on a film or script and then they ask you what is it about, your title should make them do”ohhh, I wanna know more.” I someone just hears about your movie titles, that should

  • Grab their attention

  • Hint at premise

  • Imply Genre

  • Imply conflict

  • Memorable

Whatever your title is, it should make direct appeal to the targeted audience. For example Toy Story or A Bug’s Life lets you know that these are kid’s movies, Scream is a horror movie and Back To The Future is a Sci-Fi.

But not every story is going to movie titles to these points, but more these points, you hit the better. Keep it simple and don’t get too clever because you just have couple of seconds to get someone’s attention. You don’t want them to think a lot. Don’t make movie titles too abstract or complicated, because if people don’t get it, they are going to move away.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie There Will Be Blood originally titled as Oil, which was too weak. If I ask you to choose to watch which one will you watch, most probably There Will Be Blood because it sounds more interesting and engaging.

There are three categories of movie titles.

1) Poetic Titles   2)Catchy Titles   3)Direct Titles

  • Poetic Titles

Poetic titles are the words to grab your attention which may or may not tell you always about the movie. It just seduces with the word play. Here are the few examples

No Country For Old Man

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

Requiem For A Dream

  • Catchy Titles

Catchy titles are just clever because they tell you bit about the story and genre. Here are few examples.

50 First Dates

Back To The Future

Legally Blonde

  • Direct Titles

Direct titles are straight forward. They tell you about what you are going to see or read. Here are few examples.

Jaws

Gladiator

Psycho

Next time you start a project brain storm movie titles for better results. I hope you like the post. Please let me know your thoughts in the comment box below and subscribe for the newsletter above.

Here is the list of top 10 worst movie titles of all time.

  1. ‘PHFFFT’ (1954)

  2. ‘QUACKSER FORTUNE HAS A COUSIN IN THE BRONX’ (1970)

  3. ‘BLACKENSTEIN’ (1974)

  4. ‘ZARDOZ’ (1974)

  5. ‘BREAKIN’ 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO’ (1984)

  6. ‘GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES’ (1984)

  7. ‘C.H.U.D.’ (1984)

  8. ‘DROP DEAD FRED’ (1991)

  9. ‘F.A.R.T: THE MOVIE’ (1991)

  10. ‘TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR’ (1995)

Pic Credit 

Latest Comments

  1. Shikha September 8, 2019

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