5 hit movies with hilarious working titles
Titanic working title: Planet Ice
While making the second highest-grossing movie of all time, James Cameron wanted to throw other film studios off of his trail.
When he had to shoot a scene off the coast of Nova Scotia featuring lots of icebergs, keeping this, well, titanic secret became a bit more challenging.
So, he claimed that his project was a science-fiction movie called ‘Planet Ice’.
Frozen working title: The Snow Queen
‘The Snow Queen’ was the original intended title of Disney’s 2013 blockbuster, based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name.
But the original plot of the film was going to follow the fairytale far more closely, with Elsa, the titular Snow Queen, as the villain, terrorising the kingdom with her ice powers.
After years of production struggles, Disney executives gave the film’s script a major overhaul, changing Elsa to a good character terrified of powers she couldn’t control, and the highest-grossing animated film of all time, Frozen, was born.
The Avengers working title: Group Hug
This epic on-screen team-up of several of Marvel’s biggest superheroes was a major-enough film to require a totally unrelated working title during production.
Writer-director Joss Whedon’s unusual choice? ‘Group Hug’.
Since the film takes several heroes, many of whom already had their own movies, and brings them together to save the world, this title seems appropriate.
This is despite the fact the heroes don’t get along that well until the third act of the film.
And Group Hug isn’t the only fun working title in the Marvel universe.
Captain America: The First Avenger worked under the title ‘Frostbite’, which seems apt considering that the titular hero ends up frozen in ice at the end of the movie.
Alien working title: Star Beast
Is an alien by any other name still an alien?
The 1979 Ridley Scott sci-fi/horror film was originally going to be called ‘Star Beast’, before the screenwriter realised that Alien might suit the film better because of how many times that word appeared in the screenplay.
Snakes on a Plane working title: Pacific Air Flight 121
This cult classic film was supposed to be called ‘Pacific Air Flight 121’.
The producers picked Snakes on a Plane as a comically literal working title.
The reason it became the real title? Samuel L. Jackson.
The film’s star revealed that the wacky working title, which he’d thought was going to be the real one, was the only reason he’d taken the role.
Image credits: Paramount Pictures / Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures
This article originally appeared on Reader's Digest.