Blu-ray & Discs
 Posted by - August 20, 2014

Poll: ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ Title Change

Despite favorable reviews and word-of-mouth, Tom Cruise’s sci-fi action flick ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ underperformed at the box office this summer. Seemingly to fool viewers into thinking that it’s a different movie now, the studio has given the film a brand new title for the upcoming Blu-ray release. Are you more or less likely to buy ‘Live Die Repeat’?

Although this is certainly not the first time that a movie has been retitled for a re-release or home video, it is (to my knowledge) the first time that has happened for a big-budget, major studio tentpole production that’s barely out of theaters. Considering all the money that Warner Bros. spent on advertising and promotion for the movie as ‘Edge of Tomorrow’, won’t changing the title now just serve to confuse everyone?

Nonetheless, cover artwork for the October 7th Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D editions of the film prominently display its title as ‘Live Die Repeat’ in giant letters, with only a small acknowledgement that this is indeed the same movie as ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ obscured at the bottom in far smaller text after the actor credits.

All of this stems back to a general inability to find a good title for the movie in the first place. Based on a Japanese novel, the project originally retained the book title ‘All You Need Is Kill’, which sounds exactly like what it was: the mangled bastardization of a popular British song (the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love”) that was translated from English to Japanese and back to English again by a foreign author. When that didn’t test well with American focus groups, the studio tried an even worse working title of ‘We Mortals Are’ for a time before settling on the too-generic ‘Edge of Tomorrow’. During its theatrical release, the film was promoted with the advertising tagline “Live. Die. Repeat.” Minus the punctuation, that’s now the new title.

Unclear at this time is whether the opening and end credits to the film itself have been modified, or if this change is just something that will appear on the video packaging.

Personally, I don’t think that any of these titles is very good, but changing it now seems like a really bad idea to me. For clarity sake if nothing else, I would prefer that that Blu-ray were still called ‘Edge of Tomorrow’.

What Do You Think of the Title Change for 'Edge of Tomorrow'?

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About Josh Zyber

Josh Zyber is a veteran movie and video disc reviewer from Laserdisc to DVD and beyond. He previously wrote for DVDFile.com, DVDTalk.com, and Home Theater magazine.
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79 comments

  2. Csm101
    August 20, 2014 at 6:42 am - Reply

    I liked All You Need is Kill, it sounded ballsy. Edge of Tomorrow wasn’t horrible but it sounds a lot like Escape From Tomorrow. Do you know if the spine reads Live. Die. Repeat. or Edge of Tomorrow? I don’t think the movie underperformed because of the titles, I just think Tom Cruise doesn’t have the draw he used to. I myself really enjoyed the movie. I took the cover as a way of explaining the plot a little by trying to be clever.

    • Csm101
      August 20, 2014 at 6:59 am - Reply

      Anyways, I think it’s a bad idea to tamper with the title at this point. Wouldn’t most people know it as Edge of Tomorrow? Maybe they should slap all the titles on the bluray. LIVE.DIE.REPEAT
      Because
      ALL YOU NEED IS KILL
      ON
      THE EDGE OF TOMORROW
      I like it. Your welcome WARNER.

    • livetwice
      October 8, 2014 at 12:55 am - Reply

      Too bad they couldn’t have used a couple of James Bond titles. Die Another Day or Tomorrow Never Dies would have been great and would have fit the movie perfectly.

  3. Mike H
    August 20, 2014 at 6:50 am - Reply

    Edge of Tomorrow is better. Now if we can just get Fox to change Live Free or Die Hard back to the better international title: Die Hard 4.0

    • Josh Zyber
      Author
      August 20, 2014 at 7:47 am - Reply

      “Live. Die. Repeat.” was previously the advertising tagline. While that was in larger text, the movie’s title was still clearly differentiated and legible below the names of the stars. Now “Edge of Tomorrow” has been shrunken down to tiny text at the very bottom that does not draw a viewer’s eye. As far as the studio is concerned, “Live Die Repeat” is now the new title.

      • Shannon Nutt
        August 20, 2014 at 8:57 am - Reply

        Actually Warners replied to this yesterday (or the day before) and said it WASN’T a title change,

        Their official Twitter response was:

        “Title is still officially EDGE OF TOMORROW — Live Die Repeat remains the tagline/home video angle.”

        The back of the Blu-ray cover still calls it “EDGE OF TOMORROW” and I’m assuming there will be no credits change, either.

        At most, this is reminiscent of changing “RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK” to “INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK” on box covers for that film.

        • Josh Zyber
          Author
          August 20, 2014 at 9:12 am - Reply

          That may be Warner’s official response when asked, but the packaging is clearly designed to lead buyers to read “Live Die Repeat” as the title. As Michael asked, what other movie release has ever put the advertising tagline on the spine – much less put it on the spine BEFORE the movie’s title?

          Say someone had been in a coma for the past year, woke up, and headed to Best Buy to see what movies they’d missed. If they picked up this Blu-ray case, what would they think the movie’s title is?

          Amazon has an image of the back cover up now and it doesn’t mention the title at all.

          Earlier this week, the movie’s IMDb entry had been updated to change the title to Live Die Repeat. It appears to have been changed back in the meantime.

          I think that the studio had intended to officially change the title, but is backtracking now after hearing complaints about it.

          • Chris B
            August 20, 2014 at 10:10 am -

            It kinds reminds me of the “No Country For Old Men” steelbook that came out years back….The quote “you can’t stop what’s coming” was displayed above and more prominently than even the title itself. Though this packaging is far more drastic..

          • freakyguy666
            August 20, 2014 at 2:40 pm -

            Shannon is correct. JZ is wrong. The studio is not changing the title. They may have considered it but determined the change was not necessary. A larger tagline than the title is nothing new.

          • Tim Tringle
            August 20, 2014 at 3:56 pm -

            They may not be officially changing the title but you cannot deny this is Marketing BS because the movie did not perform as they had wished. The movie was awesome they should have moved it so it didn’t come out the same weekend as “The Fault in our stars”. But the studio is definitely trying to pull something with this move.

          • Eric
            August 21, 2014 at 6:36 am -

            Josh, if someone had been in a coma for the past year and went into Best Buy, the first thing they would notice is that Best Buy doesn’t really sell movies anymore. Waste of a trip these days!

          • freakyguy666
            August 21, 2014 at 11:32 am -

            Drew for the record you have agreed with Josh that 4 is NOT more than 0 or 1.

            And now you are taking Best Buy’s product listing as gospel over the Studio’s official statement.

            Sounds like you live in Bizarro world buddy.

            Good luck with that!

          • Drew
            August 21, 2014 at 12:24 pm -

            I don’t care what the studio’s official statement is.

            Do you really think this is the first time a studio has attempted to reneg on a bone-headed move?

            WB was clearly changing the title, and trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.

            Their “official statement” that you put so much stock in, was merely a reaction to all of the negative publicity their moronic move generated.

            How do you think Best Buy product listings are determined? You really think Best Buy just pulls them out of thin air, completely arbitrarily? C’mon, even you are not that stupid/obtuse/naive.
            Well, you are the one that believes that 3 is more than, what was it, 17? I guess you probably are.

            Best Buy gets their product listing information from a distributor that represents the studio. Otherwise, their product listing could list any film, any way they want to. This is clearly evidence that Best Buy was informed that the title had been changed.

          • Blaine
            August 21, 2014 at 9:01 pm -

            The actual title of that linked Best Buy webpage itself is “EDGE OF TOMORROW DVD (DVD)”, so I’m not sure what exactly it proves.

            It seems like Warner’s marketing has gotten so bad that they want to confuse customers by mixing taglines with titles. I expect catch-phrases will be next, so expect to see a new season of “Bazinga!: The Big Bang Theory”

      • Blaine
        August 22, 2014 at 9:13 am - Reply

        I was talking about the actual HTML title of the webpage that shows in the header or tab title of the web browser (at least in Safari… it looks like it only shows in the tab title in IE and it is too long to see it all… and they hide it completely in the Windows 8 Metro version of IE. Bah!)

        But they’ve changed it today anyway and it now says “Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow (DVD) – Best Buy”. You can check the HTML source if it doesn’t show in your browser, though it seems like they haven’t finalized it yet, anyway.

        • Blaine
          August 22, 2014 at 9:18 am - Reply

          Sorry, I replied to the wrong indent on the thread. Not having the reply on the actual message is strange. Does the forum software only nest to a certain level or did you do something different with that one post so no reply button shows on the subposts? (or am I the only one that is seeing that?)

        • Josh Zyber
          Author
          August 22, 2014 at 9:20 am - Reply

          I’ve viewing in Chrome, and both the tab and HTML source say “Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow (DVD)”. At least, they do today. Perhaps they changed it.

          • Blaine
            August 22, 2014 at 10:08 am -

            Yeah, they definitely changed it, since it was copy and pasted from the HTML for my first post. That’s where the ALL CAPS came from… I wasn’t doing it for emphasis, they actually had it in all caps. It was very strange and I was wondering how no one noticed that (until you replied and I checked how it was displayed in IE versus Safari.) Safari isn’t the best browser, but I do like that it displays the page title as the window title.

  6. Muttley
    August 20, 2014 at 7:56 am - Reply

    I actually like Live.Die.Repeat.

    Edge Of Tomorrow as not distinctive enough…way too bland and milquetoast (sorta like Cruise most of the time so I see the correlation). Focus groups strike again.

    If it had been up to me (which it totally wasn’t) I probably would have suggested the title ReSpawn. It might have been a bit obtuse to those who aren’t familiar with gaming jargon, but it would have, at least, been a bit less generic.

  7. Drew
    August 20, 2014 at 8:02 am - Reply

    Well, Josh, I wish you would have included option that was closer to the one that you chose:

    “Personally, I don’t think that any of these titles is very good, but changing it now seems like a really bad idea to me. For clarity sake if nothing else, I would prefer that that Blu-ray were still called ‘Edge of Tomorrow’.”

    Sure, you included, “They’re all pretty lame titles”, but that’s not really the same.

    Here’s the deal: while I may prefer ‘LIVE DIE REPEAT’ to the generic ‘Edge of Tomorrow’, they’re both pretty mediocre-to-poor. Furthermore, it’s a terrible idea to change the title, at this stage in the game.

    Just try to imagine what went into eventually settling on ‘Edge of Tomorrow’. After all of that, they’re just going to throw it away. I think the only thing this can accomplish is to make the people that weren’t aware of the film, when it was in theatres, believe that it’s a lame duck direct to video release.

  8. Ian
    August 20, 2014 at 8:44 am - Reply

    Just a clarification: There is no “Japanese” title of All You Need Is Kill, and no back-and-forth translations. The title is phonetically written in katakana as ă‚ȘăƒŒăƒ«ăƒ»ăƒŠăƒŒăƒ»ăƒ‹ăƒŒăƒ‰ăƒ»ă‚€ă‚șăƒ»ă‚­ăƒ« // “ƌru YĆ« NÄ«do Izu Kiru”.

  9. Timcharger
    August 20, 2014 at 8:52 am - Reply

    Warner Bros KNOWS what will happen if it markets the film with the same old title.
    It’s trying to change the future…

    —–

    Given that we know that Warner is “trying” to change the title, and if it DOES know
    the future, then we must assume this current title: Live. Die. Repeat. MUST be the
    correct choice to go with. Otherwise we will see titles like:

    Groundhog Scientologist
    Matrix Maverick
    Back to the Future, Jerry Maguire

  11. Daniel Cooper
    August 20, 2014 at 9:49 am - Reply

    Tom Cruise nor the title were the reasons this film failed. It failed because it was released opposite the cliche “Fault in Our Stars.” The teenage girls were too much to overcome.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author
      August 20, 2014 at 9:54 am - Reply

      I’d think that the two movies have very different audiences. I doubt that too many males in the 18-34 bracket skipped Edge of Tomorrow to go see Fault in Our Stars instead.

      • William Henley
        August 25, 2014 at 9:28 am - Reply

        Yes, but the Teenage girl crowd is a major audience. Pretty much every movie I have seen over the past two years, the theater has been AT LEAST 50% teenage girls, whether that was Godzilla, Star Trek, Elysium, etc. The chic-flicks (like Divergant) were like 95% teenage girls. At least on Saturday night shows, when I usually go. If I go on a Thursday, its mostly guys, Fridays, couples. But point is, the teenage girl audience is a major audience. I can certainly see Edge of Tomorrow suffering if it opened opposite of Fault in Our Stars. Edge of Tomorrow was like all guys in the theater, and it was only half full on opening weekend

        While it may not be the target audience, teenage girls are really driving sci-fi right now. In fact, I know more girls who watch Sci-Fi shows such as Doctor Who and Torchwood (when it was on) than I do guys

    • Drew
      August 20, 2014 at 10:28 am - Reply

      This film didn’t fail. It made $100 million, domestically, and it will close with about $370 million, worldwide. That’s more than double its production budget. There’s no way that this film should ever be looked at as a failure. Did it underperform? Moderately. If the budget would have been $100 million, would people view it as an indisputable success? Absolutely.

  12. Chris B
    August 20, 2014 at 10:18 am - Reply

    I think part of the reason why the movie underperformed was the difficulty to convey the movie’s biggest strength: it’s genius screenplay and wit. It’s simply a much smarter and sharper movie than the trailers were able to convey. The first time I saw one myself I said “Look at those goofy ass mechs, another Tom Cruise Sci-Fi flick? I’ll pass” It was only after the strong reviews I gave it a shot and was blown away. I’m thinking regardless of title, this movie will find new life on the home video and develop a following like Fight Club or Blade Runner…at least I hope so anyways.

  13. Csm101
    August 20, 2014 at 11:26 am - Reply

    I’m gonna place this with my letter E blus, even if they do change it. That’s the way I saw it at the movies. And I strongly agree with Chris B that this will do very well in the home market, kind of reminds me of Pacific Rim (not the movie itself, but the circumstances).It’s gonna be demo material on a visual and audio level so I think a lot of folks that missed it in theaters are ready to check this one out at home.

  14. agentalbert
    August 20, 2014 at 11:29 am - Reply

    “Personally, I don’t think that any of these titles is very good, but changing it now seems like a really bad idea to me. For clarity sake if nothing else, I would prefer that that Blu-ray were still called ‘Edge of Tomorrow’.”

    I agree with this completely. Bad idea to change it now, and they didn’t change it to anything better. There was nothing wrong with “Edge Of Tomorrow”. If the studio thinks the title is why it didn’t do well, I think they’re looking for excuses in the wrong place.

  15. Csm101
    August 20, 2014 at 11:53 am - Reply

    What if the marketing team didn’t officially change the title, but to keep people curious, they did it the way they did to generate buzz. Maybe its a stunt to kind of plant a seed in viewers minds and get talked about a little more than your average “coming soon to bluray and digital hd” spiel. Maybe it’s working because we’re discussing it. Although with this kind of crowd (movie buffs) I don’t think it matters because we’d know about it anyways. Maybe I’m reading in to it too deeply. Whatever, I’ll buy it regardless.

  16. Elizabeth
    August 20, 2014 at 7:43 pm - Reply

    Maybe they could just put a big picture of Tom Cruise and the words Mission Impossible. Maybe something like, “THE MISSION WAS IMPOSSIBLE.” But have “THE” and “WAS” be much smaller and in a color that closely matches the background.

    Or maybe have the name “Emily Blunt” and find some way to work in the phrase “full frontal” right below it. Maybe something about a “full frontal assault” but again make “assault” easy to ignore. Perhaps also adding the phrase “hard core.”

  17. Csm101
    August 20, 2014 at 7:53 pm - Reply

    You know what else bothers me about this cover? Forget about the title being lame, this cover sucks and is even more lame. You want to talk uninspired, look no further. The onesheets may not have been the best in the world, but they were much better than this. If they were going to go through all the hassles of a title change, they could of had some better art work.

  18. C.C. 95
    August 20, 2014 at 8:15 pm - Reply

    I actually just Pre-Ordered the steel from Japan. Same cover art, but titled ALL YOU NEED IS KILL. Hell to the yeah!
    Money well spent!

      • C.C. 95
        August 20, 2014 at 9:01 pm - Reply

        It’s a little bit of $. But Not only is it the proper art, but the title it should have been all along!
        Of course, I’m sure the actual title on the film will be EOT, but still…
        Pound for pound still the best summer movie (sorry, but I’m one of the guys who didn’t get bowled over by Guardians-A solid B when you see it in the clear light of day, sans Hype-Goggles).
        But, the retitling thing is certainly one of the weirdest things I’ve seen in a while!

  22. eric
    August 21, 2014 at 6:09 pm - Reply

    I think Warner Bros just sucks at marketing, the comments in this blog have probably been the most promotion this film has received.

    The official poster makes it look like the name of the film is LIVE ON THE EDGE. http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1199361024/tt1631867?ref_=tt_ov_i

    I remember liking the commercials and I was never clear what the title was from the beginning. I thought it was called WEAPON or REPEAT, but could never remember. The original trailer focuses more on LIVE. DIE. REPEAT than the title of the film. And, the music repeats “This is not the end” over and over. Verdict: Shit Marketing from the beginning.

  25. freakyguy666
    August 21, 2014 at 11:40 pm - Reply

    Josh, the poll would be more insightful if there were a choice to the effect of “I don’t care about the title, I’m buying it anyway”.

    That would have been my choice…and I’m sure Im not alone.

  27. Drew
    August 26, 2014 at 2:41 pm - Reply

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/08/25/the-best-and-worst-marketed-movies-of-summer-2014/

    Warner is trying something unique for the home video release, unofficially titling the film Live. Die. Repeat on the box art and on the iTunes homepage leading up to its VOD/DVD debut. It’s not a new title, so much as emphasizing a simple marketing hook that explicitly spells out the premise.

    What do you have to say about this, Freak? This is a major publication stating that Warner is “titling the film Live. Die. Repeat.” for the video release.

    • Freakyguy666
      August 28, 2014 at 12:15 am - Reply

      I say that you have major reading comprehension problems. As the article indicates, this is not an official title change. That is what I said. As did Warner in their official response. Yet you continue to insist that the opposite is true.

      Take a look at this official movie poster: http://moviepilot.com/posts/2014/06/16/edge-of-tomorrow-poster-1516765?lt_source=external,manual

      They have been marketing this movie without emphasizing the actual title “Edge of Tomorrow” since before its theatrical release.

      Case closed.

      • Drew
        September 4, 2014 at 7:33 am - Reply

        I’m sure you’ll reply to Josh’s latest comment by saying that the subject line of his email is what you have been pointing out, the entire time, and that MORE AND MORE readers — including Josh — have MAJOR READING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS.

      • Drew
        September 4, 2014 at 8:28 am - Reply

        Whenever you are proven wrong, you just start arguing the counterpoint, as if that’s what you have been saying, all along. Everyone reads right through it. Your tactics aren’t going to work on anybody.

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