55 Famous Movies With Hilarious Working Titles You Won’t Believe Are Real
In pre-production, 'American Pie' was called 'Teenage Sex Comedy That Can Be Made For Under $10 Million That Your Reader Will Love But The Executive Will Hate.'
By 
Nico Lang
Did you know that Annie Hall was almost called It Had to Be Jew? Before it got the name we now know it by, the film was also titled Anhedonia, among many others, and many other movies have gone through a number of working titles before release.
This happens for a number of reasons. Movies like The Switch and The To-Do List originally started out with more daring titles that got switched when they went into production (like #32). Could you imagine The Baster or The Hand Job coming to a theatre new you?
Sometimes the studio just used the title as placeholder, before they came up with something else. Often the title comes from the source material — like Field of Dreams‘ original title, Shoeless Joe. Otherwise studios use working titles to throw off fanboys, which is why Captain America was called Frostbite in pre-production. But sometimes, there is no logical explanation, proof that we don’t need mistranslations to screw our titles up for us. Hollywood can do that all on their own.
Here are 55 working titles that we know by a different name. Some of them (like #5) it’s best they didn’t use, but I like to imagine a universe where I saw #40 in theatres. This is the best of all possible worlds.
1. The 13th Warrior
Eaters of the Dead
2. 50/50
I’m With Cancer
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
How the Solar Space Was Won AND Journey Beyond the Stars
4. 2012
Farewell, Atlantis
5. Alien
Star Beast
6. American Pie
Teenage Sex Comedy That Can Be Made For Under $10 Million That Your Reader Will Love But The Executive Will Hate AND Comfort Food
7. American Wedding
American Pie 3: Piece of Pie
8. Annie Hall
Anhedonia AND It Had to Be Jew AND Me and My Goy AND A Rollercoaster Named Desire
9. The Avengers
Group Hug
10. Back to the Future
Spaceman from Pluto
11. Back to the Future: Part II
Paradox
12. Basic Instinct
Love Hurts
13. Batman Begins
The Intimidation Game
14. Big
When I Grow Up
15. Blade Runner
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Note: This is the name of Philip K. Dick’s original story.
16. Boys Don’t Cry
Take It Like a Man
17. The Breakfast Club
The Lunch Bunch
18. Bring It On
Jump!
19. Casablanca
Everybody Comes to Rick’s
20. Child’s Play
Batteries Not Included
21. A Clockwork Orange
Chocolate Orange
22. Cloverfield
Cheese
23. Crossroads
What Are Friends For?
24. Cop Out
A Couple of Dicks
25. The Dark Knight
Rory’s First Kiss
26. Dead Ringers
Twins
Note: Also the name of an Arnold Schwarzenegger-Danny DeVito movie.
27. Dogma
Bearclaw
28. Drop Dead Gorgeous
Dairy Queens
29. E.T.
A Boy’s Life
30. Friday the 13th
A Long Night at Camp Blood
31. Hallloween
The Babysitter Murders
32. Hancock
Tonight, He Comes
33. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
Harold and Kumar Get the Munchies
34. Hitch
The Last First Kiss
35. Joy Ride
Candy Cane AND Highway Horror AND Squelch
36. Last Action Hero
Extremely Violent
37. Letters From Iwo Jima
Red Sun, Black Sand AND Men From Mars
38. Mean Streets
Season of the Witch
39. Not Another Teen Movie
Ten Things I Hate About Clueless Road Trips When I Can’t Hardly Wait to Be Kissed
40. Obsessed
Oh No She Didn’t
Note: Oh, but if only she did.
41. Point Break
Johnny Utah
42. Pretty Woman
$3000
43. Psycho
Wimpy
Note: Also the name of a Popeye character.
44. Pulp Fiction
Black Mask
45. Reality Bites
The Real World
Note: They had to change the title when the MTV show debuted and stole it.
46. Return of the Jedi
Blue Harvest
47. Saturday Night Fever
The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night
Note: This is the name of the magazine article on which the movie was based.
48. Scream
Scary Movie
49. Some Like It Hot
Not Tonight, Josephine
50. Stepmom
Goodnight, Moon AND Class Divided
Note: One of these is a popular children’s book, which would be confusing.
51. Talladega Nights
High, Wide and Handsome
52. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Head Cheese
53. Titanic
The Ship of Dreams AND Planet Ice
54. While You Were Sleeping
Coma Guy
55. Unforgiven
The Cut-Whore Killings 
