Monday, November 07, 2005

What's In A Name?

So for relatively obvious reasons, naming our film "Die Hard In A House" didn't really seem viable.

Not that we didn't consider it. I mean, given budgetary limitations, having the words "DIE HARD" in the title of the film seems pretty appealing to me, that's for sure. But you know how it goes... lawyers... expensive legal counsel... cease-and-desist letters from Twentieth Century Fox... blah blah blah.

So we needed a name. From Day 1, Dave and I were calling it "Safehouse." Seemed like a pretty solid title. One of those good "double meaning" kind of titles... (you know... "Face Off"). I could envision it on a box, sitting on the shelf at Blockbuster. Sounds action-y, but not mindless.

In addition, I'm told it was the title of a 90's era movie starring Patrick Stewart, which meant we had a decent chance of capturing that critical "Suckered Trekkie Who Didn't Look Closely Enough At The Box" demographic.

I'm pretty sure Producer Dude was digging it, too.

Which meant, of course, that the investors (aka THE MONEY) hated it. I'm still not 100% sure what the concern was, but I believe they felt it wasn't action oriented enough. Naturally, I would disagree, but hey... its their money, so who am I to bitch?

So we went back to the drawing board. We racked our brains. We quizzed friends and family. And then we put together a new list. Here are some of the alternate titles we came up with:

The War of 1812... S. Magnolia Avenue.
The Thrilla In The Villa
Warhouse (say it outloud to really appreciate it)
Extreme Home Takeover
The War Upstairs
Home Jeopardy
Condemned Property
Final Estate
House Under Fire
House On Fire
Under Siege
Backblast
Home Front
Home Invasion
UNSafeHouse
Line of Defense
Army of One
The Infiltrator
The Invaders
Personal Invasion
Against The Wall
Line in the Sand
Defending the Castle
McGuyver's Bitch
The Assault
Under Fire

So we submitted our list to Producer Dude, who edited out all the really crap ones, leaving him with a list of like... I dunno... three titles maybe? I hope "Home Invasion" was on that list. I really liked that title.

Anyhow... the MONEY carefully reviewed the list and gave us their choice:

"SIEGE"

Huh? I'm sure if you scrub that list above, you'll see that "Siege" is nowhere to be found. Dave tried his best with Producer Dude.

"Safehouse Siege?"

"No... just... Siege."

"Safehouse Under Siege?"

"Dave..."

"McGuyver's Bitch Siege?"

"That's quite enough, Dave."

"Ok. Fine."

So... Siege it is.

I'll be utterly honest and say that I hated it at first, but its grown on me. Sure, it has questionable relevance to the movie itself, but it sounds pretty badass. In addition, it has the possibility of appealing to an even broader audience than "Safehouse" - specifically the enviable "Suckered Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, Annette Bening, or Tony Shaloub Fan Who Didn't Look Closely Enough At The Box" demographic.