From CHUD, It’s always been obvious that the Will Smith superhero movie Tonight, He Comes would get a new name – that title is just fucking awful. But who would have guessed that the film would actually get a title that was even worse?The movie, a softened version of a script about a hard-drinking superhero who has fallen out of the public’s affection and starts sleeping with his publicist’s wife, is now called John Hancock, despite not having anything to do with the Declaration of Independence as far as I can tell.
I’m trying to wrap my head around the terrible decision making on display in this name change. We live in an era of unprecedentedly bad movie titles - in an effort to fit names on shrinking marquees, titles are getting shorter and more generic – but John Hancock might just take the cake. Unless of course it gets shortened to John, which is the current rumor. At this point why even bother giving films titles? Why not just Will Smith Superhero Movie? Or is that too long?
We’ll know the film’s title when it comes out exactly one year from now, as Will Smith reclaims his ‘Mr. 4th of July’ title.
1 comment:
I think that guy just coined the new title for John Hancock. "Mr. 4th of July."
Heh heh...Hancock. That reminds me of when I was working in children's books. My boss had a series title about this kid named Ronald Morgan, and the book I worked on was about Ronald getting a puppy named Lucky. Well, the working title of the book was Ronald Morgan Gets Lucky, and I mentioned the potential problem with that title to my boss and got only blank stares in return. She actually didn't know the expression "get lucky," and of course concluded that I didn't know what I was talking about.
So you can imagine my quiet gratification at the production meeting soon afterwards, when the head of editorial said with a laugh "Oh, and of course this title's GOT to go."
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