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15 Iconic Movies That Almost Had Different Names

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Nearly called something else.

Nazarii Verbitskiy

TV Shows & Movies - October 18th 2026, 11:00 GMT+2

Cropped saturday night fever 1977 — 15. Saturday Night Fever (1977)
A 1976 New York magazine piece called "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" gave Saturday Night Fever its first working title, lifted nearly word for word. Nik Cohn wrote the article, later admitting much of it was fabricated rather than reported. Paramount trimmed the name down for posters and marquees. John Travolta's white suit ended up doing more marketing work than the title ever could. | © Paramount Pictures

Field of Dreams — 14. Field of Dreams (1989)
W.P. Kinsella's 1982 novel was called Shoeless Joe, after the disgraced ballplayer Joe Jackson, and the film kept that name deep into production. Universal worried audiences would assume it was a straight biopic about the Black Sox scandal. Phil Alden Robinson's script leaned harder into the father-son ending, so the studio renamed it Field of Dreams. Kinsella reportedly liked the new title better than his own. | © Universal Pictures

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre — 13. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Tobe Hooper's 1974 slasher circulated under the title "Head Cheese" during early drafts, a nod to the film's more graphic butchery. Distributors balked at how literal and unpleasant it sounded, even for a horror picture. The final title, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, was arguably just as blunt but read better on a marquee. Leatherface's chainsaw became the lasting image either way. | © Bryanston Distributing

Basic Instinct — 12. Basic Instinct (1992)
Joe Eszterhas sold his script under the name "Love Hurts" before Paul Verhoeven's film became Basic Instinct in 1992. That earlier title made it sound like a romance, which is almost funny given the ice pick. Eszterhas was paid $3 million for the screenplay, a record at the time. The new title fit a film built entirely around calculated risk. | © TriStar Pictures

Big — 11. Big (1988)
Gary Ross wrote an early draft of Big under the title "When I Grow Up," centered more plainly on a kid's wish to skip childhood. Penny Marshall's 1988 film kept the wish but widened the focus once Tom Hanks signed on as Josh. The simpler one-word title matched the size of his performance. Hanks earned his first Oscar nomination for playing a twelve-year-old in an adult's body. | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped american pie 1999 — 10. American Pie (1999)
Universal almost released American Pie under the name of its setting, East Great Falls High. That title read like a yearbook, not a comedy about four teenagers racing to lose their virginity before graduation. Test audiences responded better to something blunter, and the pie scene gave them an easy swap. Jason Biggs became a household name because of that single sight gag. | © Universal Pictures

Stand by Me — 9. Stand by Me (1986)
Stephen King published the novella this film is based on as "The Body" back in 1982, inside his collection Different Seasons. Rob Reiner kept that title during early development before switching to a line pulled from the Ben E. King song playing over the credits. Four kids walking along train tracks needed a warmer title than one referencing a corpse. River Phoenix was 15 when he filmed it. | © Columbia Pictures

Cropped annie hall 1977 — 8. Annie Hall (1977)
Woody Allen originally called this film "Anhedonia," a clinical term for the inability to feel pleasure. Marshall Brickman co-wrote the script with him, and even he thought the word would send people straight to the dictionary instead of the theater. The title changed to the lead character's name, played by Diane Keaton, whose own last name is Hall. She won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1978, and the film took Best Picture that same night. | © United Artists

Cropped The Breakfast Club 1985 — 7. The Breakfast Club (1985)
John Hughes wrote drafts of this film under the working title "The Lunch Bunch," which sounds more like a cafeteria program than a Saturday detention drama. Five teenagers stuck in a library for nine hours needed a name with more edge to it. The phrase "breakfast club" came from a nickname used at Hughes's own high school in Illinois. Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, and Judd Nelson turned that single room into a whole genre. | © Universal Pictures

Halloween — 6. Halloween (1978)
Debra Hill and John Carpenter wrote their script under the title "The Babysitter Murders," a blunt description that gave away the entire plot. Producer Irwin Yablans pushed for something tied to the calendar instead, landing on a date everyone already circles. Carpenter scored the film himself for about ten thousand dollars, and that simple piano theme ended up scarier than the title ever was. Michael Myers never needed a slasher name once Halloween became his. | © Compass International Pictures

Alien — 5. Alien (1979)
Dan O'Bannon's early drafts of Alien carried the title "Star Beast," a name that put the creature front and center. Ridley Scott's 1979 film buried that monster in shadow for most of its runtime instead. The single word "Alien" worked better precisely because it named almost nothing. Twentieth Century Fox kept the ad campaign just as sparse: "In space no one can hear you scream." | © 20th Century Fox

Pulp Fiction — 4. Pulp Fiction (1994)
Quentin Tarantino once planned to call his 1994 crime film "Black Mask," a nod to the pulp magazine that printed hardboiled fiction in the 1920s and 30s. The title he landed on instead describes the genre rather than borrowing from it. "Pulp Fiction" refers to cheap, sensational magazine stories, exactly the tone the film chases through its diner robbery and briefcase mystery. Miramax released it in 1994, and it won the Palme d'Or that same year. | © Miramax

Scream — 3. Scream (1996)
Before it became Scream, Kevin Williamson's script circulated under the name "Scary Movie," a title plain enough to describe half the genre. Dimension Films changed it before release in 1996, partly to avoid confusion and partly because it undersold the joke. The name "Scary Movie" later got recycled anyway, for the 2000 spoof that parodied this exact film. Wes Craven's movie kept its mask, its voice modulator, and a title with some edge to it. | © Dimension Films

Cropped Pretty Woman — 2. Pretty Woman (1990)
Vivian Ward's opening negotiation in Pretty Woman gave the film its working title: "3000," the dollar amount she's paid for a week with Edward. Garry Marshall's 1990 romantic comedy dropped that number once test audiences responded more to the fairy tale than the transaction. Julia Roberts' performance turned the film into Disney's highest grossing release of that year under its new name. The title that survived says nothing about money at all. | © Buena Vista Pictures (Disney)

Back to the Future — 1. Back to the Future (1985)
Somewhere in development, "Spaceman from Pluto" got floated as a title for what became Back to the Future. A studio executive reportedly pushed for it, worried that a film with "future" in the title sounded like a box office dud. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale kept their original title anyway, and Universal released the film in 1985. It grossed over $200 million domestically and spawned two sequels, neither one mentioning Pluto. | © Universal Pictures

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Some of cinema’s most recognizable titles were almost something completely different, and in a few cases the original name would have changed everything. Here are 15 iconic movies that almost had different names.

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Some of cinema’s most recognizable titles were almost something completely different, and in a few cases the original name would have changed everything. Here are 15 iconic movies that almost had different names.