Alternate Titles With Entirely Different Meanings Are Given To Movies After Being Dubbed Into Another Language

Sometimes the original title is just not as captivating or meaningful for other cultures.

Ayoub

• Published in Film & TV
• March 8, 2022

Words matter and people are drawn to a variety of different words, some cultures will respond more to certain expressions and wordings, it all depends on past experiences and the environment people live in. So naturally, naming things will have to differ in each country, because despite speaking the same language, cultural and slang differences are always a thing to take into consideration.

Movies with the potential to reach worldwide audiences have to be very flexible in order to attract as many people as possible. Their original name might be the best name out there, but in order to appeal to specific audiences, that name has to sometimes change.

That can often mean a drastic change that neither sounds nor looks anything like the original name, but as long as it works, that should not really matter. Coincidentally, in some rare cases, there will be a movie with the exact same name in another country, and in order to avoid confusion, a simple change is made, so people are not misled.

Scroll down and check out some of the most bizarre movie name changes, you would not be able to recognize most of these if it weren't for the posters. Some of them are funny too!

1. Home Alone

2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

It could be related to recent terror attacks.

3. The Hangover

I guess it kind of makes sense.

4. Silver Linings Playbook

5. Annie Hall

6. Harry and the Hendersons

7. The Peanuts Movie

The U.K distributors wanted a stronger association with the characters.

8. Leon

9. Live Free or Die Hard

10. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

11. The Shawshank Redemption

12. Pretty Woman

13. Snatch

14. The Avengers

A popular British TV show from 1961-1969 had the name 'The Avengers', so they added 'Assemble' to the title to separate them.

15. Neighbors

Australia's longest-running soap opera is called 'Neighbours', so in order not to confuse audiences the name had to slightly change.

16. Fever Pitch

Fever Pitch was originally an American adaptation of a 1997 British movie about soccer. However, the American version changed the sport to baseball.

17. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone

JK Rowling changed the name from Philosopher’s Stone to Sorcerer’s stone so that American children would find it more magical. And in case they didn't know what philosopher meant.

18. Airplane

They changed the name from Airplane to Flying High in Australia and New Zealand, because another American movie named ‘Airport 80’ was set to be released around the same time. 

19. 13 Going On 30

The name change is due to the expression 'going on' not being common in Australia.

20. Zootopia

According to a Disney spokesperson, Zootopia changed to Zootropolis ‘to have a unique name that works for UK audiences

21. Breaking Bad

I mean he is a Meth Dad after all.

Things get lost in translation, but in order to successfully be able to reach a worldwide audience, you're forced to make adaptations and changes that will make it much easier for everyone to understand what the movie is all about.

Although some of these names are quite odd, you would never be able to guess which movie it was just from the name alone. Maybe, that's what they were going for in some of the movie posters above.

Regardless, it was interesting to see some of these movie title changes, the world is so diverse and different and it's refreshing to see things like this.

Ayoub