10 Movies That Almost Had Different Titles

Many titles are as iconic as their movies; we cannot imagine that they are called otherwise.

A title is an overlooked but important ingredient in a film. It should tell us a little something about the movie and pique our interest in watching it. Titles like Saving Private Ryan, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Return of the Jedi basically give away their plots. Other titles are more subtle. Back to the Future hints at science fiction and time travel, while Scream leans toward horror and violence. Sometimes, we may not understand the title until after we watch the movie ("Oh, so that's why it's called Lion!") and then come to appreciate it afterward.

Many titles are as iconic as their films; we can't imagine them being called anything else. But there are cases where the titles we know and love almost didn't come to be. Other names were considered and thrown around during pre-production, including some very different choices. Let's take a look at these ten movies and see what they were almost called instead.

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10. Snakes on a Plane (2006)

If you're a movie buff, then you probably already know this story. As the legend goes, this movie was called Snakes on a Plane when Samuel L. Jackson first received the script. And surprisingly, he agreed to star in it. During production, the film's title was changed to a less comedic and ridiculous title: Pacific Air Flight 121. Jackson, however, wasn't having it. "We're totally changing that back," he said in a 2005 interview. "That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title." Per Jackson's request, the title was changed back to its original name. Despite becoming an internet sensation in the weeks leading up to its premiere, Snakes on a Plane turned out to be a box office disappointment. And something tells us that calling the film Pacific Air Flight 121 probably wouldn't have changed that.

9. Scream (1996)

Before Scream, the horror genre was on the decline. Audiences were losing interest in watching the same old villains and tropes on the big screen. Wes Craven's Scream both revived and changed the genre by mocking the clichés of slasher films while also embracing them. The film's original title was meant to capture this approach: Scary Movie. That's right, this iconic horror film was almost called Scary Movie. Fortunately, they changed it to the darker, more serious title of Scream, and the rest is history. The film was a pop culture phenomenon and birthed a successful media franchise. A comedy spoofing the Scream films came out a few years later. And it was appropriately titled Scary Movie, which (as you now know) is a clever dig at this film's original title.

8. Beetlejuice (1988)

Tim Burton's Beetlejuice is a wacky movie that blends horror and comedy with stop-motion animation and bizarre characters. And yet somehow, it works -- although the film's title didn't initially work for Warner Bros. executives. They instead wanted to call it House Ghosts. As a joke, Burton suggested the title Scared Sheetless and was appalled when the studio actually considered using it. Scared Sheetless isn't terrible, but Beetlejuice was by far the right choice. Since its 1988 release, this film has developed a cult following and is now regarded as one of the director's best movies. After years of rumors and speculations, a sequel that includes many of Beetlejuice's original cast members, like Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder, is finally in the works.

7. Alien (1979)

Alien is considered to be one of the greatest sci-fi and horror films ever made. Its original screenplay was called Memory. This title, and much of the script, was scrapped, though its first 29 pages did become the opening scenes of Alien: a crew awakens during their space voyage and investigates a signal from a mysterious planetoid, where their ship breaks down. The film's writer, Dan O'Bannon, didn't initially know what to make the film's antagonist. He eventually decided to make it an alien, though the term hadn't yet made it into the film's title. The movie was instead called Star Beast. This name stuck for a while until O'Bannon realized how many times the word "alien" was used in the script and decided to change it. Can you imagine if he hadn't? We'd have an entire franchise of Star Beast movies, which sounds a little corny compared to Alien.

6. Pretty Woman (1990)

Pretty Woman is an iconic film that established Julia Roberts, with those beautiful red curls, as a leading Hollywood star. The movie sets up a wealthy businessman (Richard Gere) with a young prostitute (Roberts) and takes their sexual relationship to something more romantic. Pretty Woman went through a few iterations before becoming the rom-classic that it is today. It initially started out as a dark, cautionary tale about class and prostitution. Its original screenplay also came with a different title and was called $3,000, which alludes to the cost of the prostitute's services. Thankfully, the title changed. $3,000 just doesn't have the same ring to it as Pretty Woman.

5. Annie Hall (1977)

Annie Hall is regarded as one of Woody Allen's best films. It was a turning point in the filmmaker's career, marking a shift from pure comedy and introducing a new level of seriousness in his movies. Annie Hall was almost a very different film. It began as a broad comedy and later shifted to a murder mystery. After several rewrites, Allen finally settled on the satirical, comedy-drama that we all know today. But the title still wasn't finalized. One of the titles that Allen suggested was Anhedonia, which refers to the inability to experience pleasure. Also in the running were It Had to Be Jew, Rollercoaster Named Desire, Me and My Goy, Anxiety, and Annie and Alvy. Many of these proposals touched on the film's themes, such as Jewish identity and anxiety. But in the end, Allen went with the name of his character's romantic lead for the title.

4. Back to the Future (1985)

Back to the Future is an iconic sci-fi film that's summarized perfectly by its title. Seeing its name for the first time makes viewers pause and think, "Wait, back to the future? How do you get back to the future?" But during production, the film's chief executive, Sidney Sheinberg, didn't think this title would make sense or resonate with audiences. He instead proposed the working title of Space Man from Pluto. The movie's director, Robert Zemeckis, hated this suggestion but didn't know how to reject his boss' idea. As the story goes, another one of the film's producers, Steven Spielberg, decided to step in and sent Sheinberg the following memo: "Hi Sid, thanks for your most humorous memo, we all got a big laugh out of it, keep 'em coming." Suffice to say, after Spielberg's memo was sent out, the title of Back to the Future thankfully wound up sticking.

3. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Pulp Fiction is one of those titles that you may not understand, even after watching the movie a hundred times. Inspired by 1963's three-part horror anthology film Black Sabbath, Pulp Fiction was originally conceived as a film trilogy, where each part would be written by a different director. Its working title at the time was Black Mask, named after the hard-boiled crime fiction magazine that ran from the 1920s through the 1940s. This name was eventually changed to the iconic title of Pulp Fiction.

This alluded to "the pulps," which was a nickname for cheap, disposable paperbacks that were printed on cheap wood pulp paper, like Black Mask. Popular from the 20s through the 50s, the pulps captured everything from crime and fantasy to more racy, sexual stories. Pulp Fiction captures all of this: a cheaply made film (its budget was only $8 million), whose high-quality stories dabble with gangsters, sex, and even a little fantasy (what the hell was in that glowing briefcase?). We even see one of the film's main characters, Vincent Vega (John Travolta), reading a pulpy 1965 novel titled Modesty Blaise.

2. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Can you imagine E.T.'s movie being called anything other than...well, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial? There was a time when this was almost a possibility. E.T. began as a much darker project between Steven Spielberg and John Sayles called Night Skies, where aliens from outer space terrorize a human family. Original, right? Fortunately, this project was scrapped and morphed into something else entirely.

While filming Raiders of the Lost Ark in Tunisia, Spielberg developed a sense of loneliness that reminded him of his imaginary, alien best friend that he'd created during his parent's divorce. He shared this and the failed Night Skies project with screenwriter Melissa Mathison, who pumped out a new script in just eight weeks. It was called E.T. and Me. It was actually a solid name. But the script went through a few more revisions, one of which changed the movie's title to the classic name that we all know and love today.

1. Casablanca (1942)

Casablanca is the perfect title for this movie. It succinctly paints us the world of its story, capturing both the setting and the prison that its main character, Rick Blaine (Bogart), is trapped in. This film is widely regarded as a Hollywood classic. But what many people don't know is that it's actually based on an unproduced stage play called Everybody Comes to Rick's, a reference to Rick's nightclub in Casablanca. The film was later renamed in an attempt to mimic the 1938 film Algiers, which was a huge hit at the time. But in the decades since, it's Casablanca, not Algiers, that's remembered as one of the greatest films ever made.