10 Movies Ruined By Their Title

Sadly it simply isn't enough to make a great or even just good movie with solid direction, a tight script, and firm performances - it's all about how said film is presented to the public.

Trailers and posters are one thing, but there's perhaps nothing more fundamentally important than a movie's title. 

An attention-grabbing, interesting, or amusing title will instantly get people interested, while a title that's generic, forgettable, or even intentionally misleading is just going to cause problems.

And so, inspired by this recent Reddit thread on the very subject, here are 10 movies that were absolutely, positively ruined by their title above all else.

Despite all of these films presumably passing through the hands of well-staffed marketing teams and swaths of executives who should probably know better, they were sent out into the world with titles that were just generally unappealing and uninspired.

In most instances the films took a hit at the box office as a result, and it was only later when they landed on home video that audiences realised the movie could've done much better with a more intriguing title...

Almost 15 years after the fact, it's still tough to make sense of Disney's naming logic for their mega-budget sci-fi blockbuster adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs' seminal novel A Princess of Mars.

They ultimately opted to name it "John Carter," amid the belief that boys wouldn't want to see a film called A Princess of Mars, and though the title "John Carter of Mars" was considered, it was felt that the "Mars" of the title would risk alienating female moviegoers.

It probably also didn't help that Disney was fresh off one of their all-time biggest flops with the animated dud Mars Needs Moms, which likely scared them off invoking the planet's name in any other film's title until the end of time.

The problem is that John Carter is a title that tells you nothing at all about the movie - it's just a totally ordinary dude's name that offers no intrigue whatsoever. 

Disney was clearly so hell-bent on appealing to as broad a demographic as possible that they accidentally avoided enticing just about anyone - hence the film's disastrous box office performance.

John Carter is far from a great film, but if it had a punchier title it absolutely would've performed better.