Informally, unofficially I know it doesn't matter and who cares? But officially, legally, etc, do they make a discrepancy about articles in titles? That is "Wizard of Oz" vs. "The Wizard of Oz". "Maltese Falcon" vs. "The Maltese Falcon". Is only one of those (one of each) the legal title? If so, which? Or does it not matter?
shareOften, the "the" article is not considered a part of the legal title.
So if you list movies alphabethical order, you have to look for those movies under "W" and "M" and not under "T".
It is rather confusing to me though, since there would be no article in those movie titles in Swedish.
In Romanian it would be something like "Vrajitorul din Oz"
sharePutting ",The" at the end of a movie title is for convenience such as with manual lists or electronic databases. I don't think it has anything to do with the "official" or "legal" title.
shareIt is fairly well known that titles cannot be copyrighted. Therefore, it is not really a big deal what the "legal" title of a movie or book is.
"So if copyright and trademark law do not reliably protect movie titles, why aren’t there more movies with the same title? In order to address this issue, the MPAA instituted a title registration bureau in 1925. Its members, including all of the major motion picture studios, can register movie titles with the registration bureau. All members agree not to use titles that are already registered without permission, and any disputes are resolved in private proceedings. This gives the industry some ability to regulate the reuse of movie titles where copyright and trademark laws fall short. But just because the MPAA can regulate title reuse among its members does not mean it can force an independent filmmaker to change a movie title." -- https://www.klemchuk.com/ideate/trademark-copyright-mpaa-when-can-you-protect-movies-titles
From the above excerpt, it would seem that the closest you could come to saying what the "official" title is, is what is registered with the MPAA.
I know some are reused like "King Kong". This is basically a remake of an earlier movie. But there are also unrelated movies with the same title. I was mentioning "The Wall" (Pink Floyd) to someone and she said there is a movie "The Wall" about Poland. And I bet there are dozens or hundreds of such examples
Right. Titles are not copyrighted. If a studio or filmmaker doesn't reuse an existing title it is out of courtesy, or to avoid confusion, not because of a legal bar.
shareSo how do you keep someone from just remaking your movie, or showing it for profit?
shareThe title isn't copyrighted. Other elements of the film absolutely are. I could make a wholly new movie that just happened to be called The Graduate. I couldn't remake The Graduate and think I was being clever by calling it something different. If someone noticed I had remade The Graduate, they could successfully sue me. If someone noticed I'd made a film called The Graduate that had no similarities to The Graduate beyond its title, they could not.
shareThe Asylum has gotten into trouble making titles and plots too similar to big budget films.
The Day the Earth Stopped - The Day the Earth Stood Still
American Battleship - Battleship
Age of the Hobbits - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Hobbit film's plot has nothing to do with Jackson's film, yet WB sued them because they didn't like Asylum "free-riding" on the worldwide promotional campaign for Jackson's forthcoming films.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asylum#Lawsuits_and_legal_issues
Aye. Just the standard story of major corporations bullying independent producers. As if enough people are going to confuse The Asylum's The Day the Earth Stopped with 20th Century Fox's The Day the Earth Stood Still for that to cut into the latter's profits.
These things are nonsense. But the Big Companies throw their weight around because they know it'll never get to a court; the threat is enough to get their way, because being on the losing side in just one case would probably finish a company like The Asylum off, while the majors can just soak it up all day long.
There was also "The Day the Earth Moved"
shareHope this helps. My aunt was a librarian. She told me this is how most libraries list titles like that in their collections:
Five People You Meet in Heaven, The (Mitch Albom)
Martian, The - Andy Weir
History of Halloween, A
A and The are not included in the title.
share