10 Movies Ruined By Their Title

William Friedkin's 1977 film Sorcerer is an excellent remake of the classic 1953 thriller The Wages of Fear, but it flopped catastrophically at the box office for one clear reason - its extremely ill-advised title.

To be clear, Sorcerer has no supernatural or magical elements whatsoever - it's a relatively grounded thriller about four outcasts who take a highly dangerous job driving two trucks loaded with old, volatile dynamite.

Given that Friedkin's previous film was The Exorcist, audiences quite reasonably assumed a fantastical aspect from the title alone, causing considerable confusion upon release.

As for why Friedkin chose this title? It's the name of one of the trucks in the movie, which Friedkin came up with while listening to Miles Davis' album Sorcerer, and was intended to reference the "evil wizard" that is fate.

It's frankly shocking that Universal and Paramount let Friedkin keep the title, even accepting his prior success with The Exorcist, especially given that The Wages of Fear is already a basically perfect and highly memorable representation of what the film is.