For _The Road Warrior_, it was because _Mad Max_ had never been released in the US when _Mad Max 2_ premiered, so it was like the deletion of the "III" from _The Madness of King George III_--they were afraid too many people would pass up a sequel. _Hoosiers_ was retitled _Best Shot_ in the UK, because (apparently) not enough British people knew what a Hoosier was. Perhaps _Trainspotting_ could have used a new title for US release, but it would probably be a worse title than _Best Shot_. It seems to be used primarily to eliminate idioms that might not be understood in another culture, even though they speak the same language. Scott =============================================================================== Scott Andrew Hutchins http://php.iupui.edu/~sahutchi Oz, Monsters, Kamillions, and More! "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."--Noam Chomsky On Tue, 23 Feb 1999, Kate Butler wrote: > Susan writes, > >The only original and decent thing about the American "re-make" of La > >Femme Nikita was the heroine's love of blues singer Nina Simone. This > >otherwise embarrassing film is called "Point of No Return," with Bridget > >Fonda, Gabriel Byrne and Harvey Keitel. > > This film (the U.S. version) was released as 'The Assassin' in Australia > which I think is a much stronger title. I have heard of this happening > before with Australian films where the title is deemed to be too parochial > perhaps ('Mad Max 2' here was released as 'The Road Warrior' in the U.S. - > I remember a national competition being run to come up with the new title). > Does anyone know the purpose of title changes for different markets? > > Kate Butler > > > _____________________________________________________ > Kate Butler > Department of Visual Communication > RMIT University, Australia > [log in to unmask] > > ---- > Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite > http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite > ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama.