Nowadays most of the movies aim to release in the international markets to go home with a bigger profit. But before they can reap benefits from the foreign markets, there are some changes that the films have to undergo. The onus usually falls on the creative and marketing teams who study the psyche of the country and tweak the film according to its palette. It’s not easy to translate the director’s message in a different language that conveys the exact meaning. So, the person ends up creating totally odd and random names for the films. Here are the 12 movies with bizarre titles in foreign countries.
Home Alone 2
The franchise of “Home Alone” was enough for the audience to grasp what the plot could be about. But the movie gave away the whole story in its title in France. The iconic Christmas movie released in France under the title of “Mum, I Missed the Plane Again and This Time I Am Lost in New York”. And we were taught our entire lives to make the headings short and crisp in schools.
Shawshank Redemption
Whether the producers simply wanted to promote the movie or not, we don’t know. But that’s the only explanation for renaming “Shawshank Redemption” as “1995: Fantastic” in Taiwan. It is worth mentioning that the film released in 1995 in foreign countries. So, what were they aiming for, really?
Breaking Bad
“Breaking Bad” was already a dark enough title to reflect the theme of the popular crime show. In order to emanate the same feeling in other languages, the series cleverly crafted an apt title for Bulgaria. Its Bulgarian name translated into In Satan’s Shoes. Now that’s how you convey the director’s message in other languages and stay relevant.
Knocked Up
Do you think the title “Knocked Up” was too bold and straightforward? Well, the filmmakers knew how to translate the slang in China without getting in trouble. They stayed as direct as one could think of, without using any controversial or offensive language. The literal translation of the Chinese title for “Knocked Up” was One Night… Big Belly. And we take our hats off for this mention.
Blade Runner
The popular sci-fi “Blade Runner” got a perfect title by Hungarian translators. Its Hungarian title translated to Winged Bounty Hunter which undeniably sounds intense and awesome.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Dear Marvel fans, hold on to something or take a seat before you hear the Taiwanese title for this MCU movie. Can’t say how the Guardians would feel about “Interplanetary Unusual Attacking Team”. That’s what their Taiwanese title translated to.
Grease
It was challenging to translate “Grease” in the literal sense in Argentina since the country used this term only for motor grease or animal jus. The best Spanish alternative they could find was “Vaselina”.
Top Gun
The Israeli title for “Top Gun” must have thrown the movie-loving Israeli audience for a loop. Considering that the romance had a small part in the action movie, it made no sense as to why the film was titled Love in the Skies in Israel. What if rom-com loving viewers ended up at the theatre while the action lovers decided to dodge the film?
As Good As It Gets
It must have taken a good deal of time and thoughts to give such an abstract name to the light-hearted classic of Jack Nicholson. But the title got weird and totally random for the Chinese market. Let us know if you find any sense or meaning in the title Mao Fen which translates to Cat Poop considering that Jack had to pick up after a dog poop, not a cat.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
The English title for “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” can be quite ambiguous. But the German translators left no room for curiosity and made a pretty direct title, almost giving out the whole story in the title. In Germany, it was named “Nie Wieder Sex mit der Ex” which means No More Sex With Your Ex.
Airplane!
The hilarious parody on plane adventures was twisted into an elaborated name to attract the German audience. The translators in Germany believed that being concise killed the wit. So they expanded the title into “Die unglaubliche Reise in einem verrückten Flugzeug” which translated into The Incredible Journey In A Crazy Plane.
Free Willy
1993 depicted the friendship between a little boy and a whale named Willy, and how he went to great lengths to save the whale from captivity. Turns out that “Free Willy” was not explicit enough for the foreign market so the makers expanded it to “A Very Powerful Whale Runs to Heaven”. Yep, that makes more sense.
