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March 9, 2010

Movie Naming and Branding: Appealing to Oscar and the Boys

I was amused to see that Disney was changing the name of its new film, Rapunzel, to Tangled in order to attract more boys to the film. Seems that The Princess and the Frog wasn't a big hit with the boys, and Disney fears, probably correctly, that the word "Princess" was to blame.

Because Rapunzel is actually a princess, Disney is worried that this new movie might face the same fate. According to the LA Times, "Disney can ill afford a moniker that alienates half the potential audience, young boys, who are needed to make an expensive family film a success."

They also considered "Unbraided" and "The Thief in the Tower." Good thing they decided on Tangled. I just cannot see how "unbraided" was supposed to appeal to boys.

This will be in 3-D, and I think that the trailer looks pretty good.

Movie naming has been on my mind lately, especially since Kate Torovnick did a great piece on How to Win the Oscar: pick a great name.

She notes that "Grand Hotel", "The Great Ziegfeld" and "From Here to Eternity" were all films with really inspiring names and which won despite the odds. So did "American Beauty" and "Shakespeare in Love," which beat "Saving Private Ryan" in 1999: "Shakespeare sounds instantly classic, and who doesn't like love?"

Torovnick suggests that Precious had the best chance of winning and that "producers should definitely start using more positive adjectives in their film titles."

Okay, Kate, I like your thinking but, remember that The Hurt Locker came out on top. Maybe it actually is about the quality of the film, and a little bit of Oscar politics for good measure.

Technorati Tags: Oscar, Hurt Locker, Rapunzel, name change, Tangled, Precious, movie titles

Posted by William Lozito at March 9, 2010 8:05 AM
Posted to Linguistics | Marketing | Media and Entertainment | Naming | Product Naming

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