Just Change the Title! Problem Solved.

After my relative disappointment with Del Toro’s Frankenstein*, I established in my mind—and in a post on the subject—a new expectation, a new rule, that I absolutely know Hollywood would never follow because cash is king and brand recognition is everything. Even so, this would be my rule (and I’ll be disappointed every time the world doesn’t conform to it):

All film adaptations of books should be named according to how much of the plot they’re actually at least attempting to follow. Or at least, they shouldn’t share the name of the work if they’re not actually adapting said work. But they can still be close. They can still invoke the work. Anyone with me?

Are you making a movie about Frankenstein? Great. Are you attempting to translate the book plot and its characters as closely as you can, within reason? Great, you can call it Frankenstein. Why not?

Or are you making a movie only inspired by, or loosely based on, Frankenstein? No problem. You can! (Especially as the book is now in public domain.) But then don’t call it Frankenstein. Call it something close, that still ties to the original but isn’t precisely the same name. Got a story focused on the titular protagonist? Call it Victor or Victor Frankenstein. Gonna make a half-comedy that focuses on the creature, and will ignore the book but embrace the old Universal version? Call it Glitches Get Stitches, or maybe Dude, Where’s My Monster?

Here’s the thing, and another reason it’s a shame Hollywood won’t do this. Many, many movies have already done this (probably for various reasons). Like, tons of them. Just a short list.

• Blade Runner ~ Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• Die Hard ~ Nothing Lasts Forever
• Soylent Green ~ Make Room! Make Room!
• The Thing ~ Who Goes There?
• Total Recall ~ We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
• Mrs. Doubtfire ~ Alias Madame Doubtfire
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb ~ Red Alert
• Stand By Me ~ The Body
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit ~ Who Censored Roger Rabbit?

Or, to stay on the gothic genre:

• The Bride (1985) ~ Frankenstein (and The Bride of Frankenstein)
• Dorian Gray (2009) ~ The Picture of Dorian Gray
• The Haunting (1999) ~ The Haunting of Hill House
• The Innocents (1961) ~ The Turn of the Screw

All perfectly acceptable titles because they’re not necessarily passing themselves off as the source material. In fact, many go right off the rails but that’s okay because they’re honest in their alternate title. Like The Bride has Sting playing a guy named Baron Charles Frankenstein. That ain’t Victor! But that’s okay.

Devil’s advocate: Isn’t there a lot of subjectivity, or gray areas, in this rule of mine? For sure. What if a director thinks they’re adapting the book but all their changes end up totally reshaping the original work so much that it’s really not the same thing anymore. Is there even such thing as a totally “faithful” adaptation? Maybe not. Still, maybe there could be a literary review board that gets consulted. A book-loving, upstanding board impervious to studio bribes.

Whatever. Just spitballing here.

I didn’t see the new Wuthering Heights film folks are raving/ranting about but everything I’ve heard about it makes me want to avoid it like tuberculosis. I remembering reading the book in high school, actually liking it more than I thought I would . . . but now, as I listen to classic literature fans complain (rightly so, it seems) about the new film, I’m realizing I probably wouldn’t like the book itself so much anymore. Never mind the film.

Except for the mood. I dig that. The vibes. Haunting moors, deep passions. But maybe not quite enough ghosts for my liking.

In any case, the new film would be just fine if it just had a new name. So you know what you’re getting (which isn’t Emily Brontë’s work). Call it Wuthering Sights or Heathcliff or I’ll Heath Your Cliff or What in Wuthering? Or, as I heard one person suggest, It’s Wutherin’ Time! To be fair, I noticed on the posters, they at least put scare quotes around the title. Did you notice? It’s a little too subtle, but at least it’s applicable. It’s not Wuthering Heights, it’s . . . “Wuthering Heights.”

* Because some of us, who really like Guillermo Del Toro, thought he was the quintessential director for such a story and would have made the best film version.