Movies That Share A Title And Nothing Else

Nearly a decade before director Catherine Hardwicke adapted the Stephenie Meyer YA smash "Twilight," another feature film bore the same name, focusing on a very different relationship than that of human Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen. Oscar-winning filmmaker Robert Benton co-wrote and directed the 1998 thriller "Twilight," which featured a cast of Hollywood heavyweights in a noir-fueled story of crime and punishment in and around the film industry.

The cast included no less than four Oscar winners: Paul Newman as an aging private eye, Gene Hackman and Susan Sarandon as former movie stars with a secret, and Reese Witherspoon as their wayward daughter. It also had a host of acclaimed supporting players, including Stockard Channing, James Garner, Giancarlo Esposito, Margo Martindale, and Liev Schreiber, among others. Despite all that firepower and a twist-laden plot, the '98 "Twilight" was a disappointment at the box office, netting just $15 million.  

Perhaps because the film was so quickly forgotten, the title easily moved over to the Hardwicke film that would eclipse its box-office take, making some $400 million worldwide. Film detectives may also note that "Twilight" has served as the title for four other films, including international releases from Cambodia, France, and Mexico.  But it seems safe to assume nobody else will be titling a film "Twilight" anytime soon, lest they grapple with sparkly vampire jokes. 

A number of titles were initially considered for "The Fast and the Furious," the 2001 feature that kicked off the phenomenally popular media franchise about street racers, which adds its tenth title, "Fast X," in 2023. 

Producer Neal Moritz told Entertainment Weekly in 2016 that the film was billed at various times as "Redline," "Racer X," and "Street Wars," until he saw a documentary about American International Pictures, the company that produced countless low-budget genre films from the 1950s to the 1980s, many directed by the legendary Roger Corman. "They talked about a Roger Corman movie called 'The Fast and the Furious,' and I was like, 'That should be the title of the movie!'"

Though the films share a title and a focus on fast cars, there are actually little to no similarities between the '01 and '54 "Fast and Furious" films. As Corman told Latin Horror in 2021, Moritz paid for the title but not the story (in the EW interview, Moritz noted that Universal also added reels of stock footage to the package), allowing them to keep the street racing angle in the script by Gary Scott Thompson, Erik Bergquist, and David Ayer. 

Corman's "Furious" film focused on a truck driver (actor John Ireland, who also co-directed) fleeing a trumped-up murder charge by entering a race from the United States to Mexico in a Jaguar owned by his kidnapping victim (Dorothy Malone). There are two other American films that bear the close-but-no-cigar "Fast and Furious" as their titles — an Ann Sothern comedy-mystery from 1939, and a Reginald Denny silent comedy from 1927 — devoid of both dialogue and the presence of Vin Diesel.

The two best-known films to use "The Avengers" as their title — the 2012 Marvel Cinematic Universe feature and the 1998 film with Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, and Sean Connery — were both based on venerable properties with enduring followings, but only one delivered a big-screen adventure that satisfied its fanbase. 

The MCU "Avengers" was, of course, inspired by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's comic book, which first united "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" in 1963. The '98 film, meanwhile, drew upon the British cult television series of the same name that paired secret agent John Steed (Patrick Macnee) with a string of formidable and stylish female partners (including Diana Rigg and Honor Blackman) who traded witty banter while foiling foes between 1961 and 1969.

Marvel Studio's "Avengers," which capped Phase One for the MCU, was a worldwide hit, generating more than $1.5 billion in global ticket sales and an Oscar nomination while also setting the stage for some of the studio's biggest hits, including "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame." The 1998 "Avengers" was almost its direct opposite; as Peter Bart's "The Gross" noted (via Facebook), it was perceived as a flop even before its release and hastily recut by Warner Bros, which only made its needlessly complicated plot even more confusing. Further complicating matters was a script laden with dreadful puns and an abundance of weird images (Sean Connery in a giant teddy bear costume) meant to evoke the series' cheeky, offbeat humor. The '98 "Avengers" was a huge flop, netting just $23 million in domestic sales against a $60 million budget.

Mention "Bad Boys" and what comes to mind? Perhaps Inner Circle's theme to the Fox/Paramount Network reality series "Cops?" Or perhaps it's the 1995 action film with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence that used that song as inspiration, having since bloomed into a franchise, with a fourth title announced in 2020. The popularity of that series has largely overwhelmed all the other "Bad Boys" features, including the critically-praised 1983 film that helped Sean Penn break out, playing a troubled teenager sent to a juvenile correctional facility.

You'd be forgiven if you never heard of 1961's "Bad Boys," though the Japanese drama about juvenile delinquents won several awards, including best film from the venerable Japanese film journal Kinema Junpo. The Finnish film "Pahar Pojat" ("Bad Boys") was also a huge hit that ranked second, just below "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," on the list of top box office winners of 2003. The drama, about a quartet of brothers who turn to crime, doesn't appear to have earned an American theatrical release, but is available on some streaming services.

The phrase "between the Devil and the deep blue sea" commonly refers to a problem in which all solutions are bad ones. According to sources, versions of the phrase were first used in the 17^th century, and it made its way into the popular lexicon through use as song and book titles. 

For science fiction and killer shark movie fans, it also provided the title of 1999's "Deep Blue Sea," a thriller by Renny Harlin that's best remembered for co-star Samuel L. Jackson's outrageous, out-of-left-field death scene and LL Cool J as a scripture-spouting cook with a parrot sidekick. A sizable hit despite its laughable effects, it generated two direct-to-video sequels.

However, a 1955 film has spawned an even greater number of iterations. The British drama "The Deep Blue Sea" was based on a popular stage play by Terence Rattigan about the fallout from a woman's adulterous affair and subsequent suicide attempt. The play has been adapted on numerous occasions: twice for television in 1954 and 1974, twice for radio, and twice as a feature film, the first with "Gone with the Wind" star Vivien Leigh in 1955 and later, with Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston in 2011.

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Before squandering audience goodwill with an unnecessary sequel in 2017, the title "Independence Day" belonged to Roland Emmerich's 1996 alien invasion film (and yes, the American national holiday). An unabashed crowd-pleaser with Oscar-winning visual effects, "Independence Day" was invariably mentioned any time media observers ticked off a list of Hollywood blockbusters in the late '90s and early 2000s, and it helped to pave the way for such Earth-in-peril pictures as "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact."

By comparison, the 1983 "Independence Day" served as a symbol of the struggle that smaller-scaled, more intimate features often face when trying to reach an audience. Directed by Robert Mandel ("F/X"), the film starred Kathleen Quinlan as an amateur photographer who found it difficult to slip from the bonds of her family and small New Mexico hometown. Despite a talented cast that included an early role for Oscar winner Dianne Wiest, the film was yanked from theaters by its distributor, Warner Bros. Pictures, after it received mixed reviews, and remained almost impossible to see until 2015, when the studio released it on DVD via its manufacture-on-demand imprint, Warner Archives Collection.

There are two very good films called "Rush," and while they have absolutely nothing to do with one another, they're both worth your time. The 2013 "Rush" may be the one audiences are most familiar with, as its the more recent of the two. That drama, directed by Ron Howard, chronicled the rivalry between Formula One drivers James Hunt (played by Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl of "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier"). A thrilling picture and an involving drama about the price of obsession, "Rush" was critically acclaimed — as was 1991's equally excellent "Rush."

The directorial debut of producer Lili Fini Zanuck, "Rush" starred Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jason Patric as narcotics cops whose use of narcotics during undercover operations cost them their jobs. Authentically gritty and fueled by excellent performances, including a menacing turn by rocker Gregg Allman as a crime boss, "Rush" is perhaps best remembered today for its Eric Clapton score, which included the Grammy-winning single "Tears in Heaven."

For modern audiences, "It," as a title, largely belongs to Stephen King's epic 1986 novel and its two screen adaptations — the 1990 TV miniseries and the two feature films released in 2017 and 2019. But "It" has also served as the title for a wide array of other film and video projects; followers of the jam band Phish know "It" as the title of a two-day festival (and accompanying DVD) featuring the group from 2003, while classic sci-fi devotees recall 1958's "It! The Terror from Beyond Space," often cited as one of the inspirations for "Alien."

There's also 1967's "It!" a British horror film with Roddy McDowall as a museum employee who discovers a golem — a statue that comes to life in Jewish folklore — and uses it for his deranged purposes, and a 1989 Russian satire about the development of a town filled with corrupt and inept leaders. However, classic film devotees know "It" as the title of a 1927 breezy silent comedy with screen legend Clara Bow as a brassy shopgirl who sets her sights on landing her wealthy boss. The film's popularity helped introduce the idea of the "it girl," one still in use nearly 100 years later, referring to a young woman whose popularity was due to an indefinable but undeniable combination of charisma, social standing, and sex appeal.