I’ve heard it said that the film was called The Madness of King George because the studio believed that US cinema audiences would think that The Madness of George III (the title of the play) was the second sequel to a film they had never heard of, The Madness of George.
Yeah, it can get confusing. I remember talking about “Henry Vee” and being ridiculed for not knowing it was “Henry the Fifth”. I swore I’d never make that mistake again!
TomH: I’ve heard it said that the film was called The Madness of King George because the studio believed that US cinema audiences would think that The Madness of George III (the title of the play) was the second sequel to a film they had never heard of, The Madness of George.
Any truth in this?
That’s what the IMDb says. It was changed for the stupid Americans.
Each of us, at some time in our lives, turns to someone - a father, a brother, a God - and asks, “Why am I here? What was I meant to be?”
Probably the first was Godfather II. Previous to that, it was rare to do out and out sequels (though sometimes there would be series like James Bond). When a sequel was made, it would usually have a different name (e.g., The Pink Panther, A Shot in the Dark).
I’d guess that Coppola wanted to make it clear that his film was a sequel to the first (which had made a hatful of money). Previous to that, the connection was made through the actors (e.g. “Peter Sellars returns as Inspector Clouseau”). But the big star of the Godfather – Marlon Brando – died at the end of the film, and some of the others were also killed off and unavailable to the story. It was evidently felt that the connection to the original was best made through the title.
Later, it was discovered that people liked sequels and that you could predict the business a sequel would do as a certain percentage of the original. That made them more attractive to the money people, who liked a sure thing.
The numbers have been spoofed (Naked Gun 33 1/2) and new variations have come up (I Still Know What You Did Last Summer).
“What we have here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, anticipating the Internet.
Sadly, not TomH.
There are probably enough examples of real stupidity on both sides of the pond without inventing any. Every good Doper should have Snope’s Urban Legend in their favourite bookmarks.
The gist of this is correct, although the first film to have a sequel titled First Film II was – believe it or not – Eisenstein’s *Ivan Groznyj II[/1] (1958), better known in this country as Ivan the Terrible, Part Two.
Of course, Eisenstein wasn’t exactly working within the Hollywood system, where sequel-making and -numbering has become an art in its own right. I do admire the simplicity of following up Alien with Aliens. Clean, understated, and ups the ante nicely, especially if you knew the first film.
He thought he was the King of America, where they pour Coca-Cola just like vintage wine.
In the same vein as Naked Gun 2 1/2, Spaceballs was supposed to have a sequel that, for some reason, never came to light. The planned title was Spaceballs 3: In Search Of 2.
I wasn’t suggesting that American audiences were stupid, but that they would be less familiar than a UK audience with the standard monarch-numbering convention.
Snopes suggests that there is an element of truth in the story, even quoting the director as saying that the claim was “not totally untrue”. This is typical of Snopes, to claim that a story is false then present evidence that tends to support it. IMHO, the whole red/white/green light thing is completely unnecessary and mars what is otherwise an excellent site.
I wish I could say, with all my heart, that I didn’t experience this.
A co-worker in her 20s (what generation is this X? Y? XYY?)thought Apollo 13 was a science fiction movie. She had no knowledge of the Apollo space program and origanally thought, before she saw the previews, that it was related to the Rocky series of movies.
Of course, she said, that couldn’t be since Apollo was killed in Rocky IV by Ivan Drago.
I have never wept for an entire generation, until then…
TomH - snopes is not above poking fun at all of us. I was one of many fooled by the “State of Kentucty copyrights it’s name, Kentucky Fried Chicken is renamed KFC” story. I would give you a link - but they have removed it. It did exist, honest.
Snopes can stick The Repository Of Lost Legends up…nevermind [/rant]. Anyways, a bigger gripe is that, lately, he’s been marking things true or false when the evidence is clearly either “unknown” or “unverifiable.” I know that Sherlock Holmes could make long strings of deductions based on one piece of evidence, but I doubt that Snopes lives at 221b Baker Street.
Oh, and the last Naked Gun movie was Naked Gun 331/3. What was the subtitle of that again? “The Final Outrage”?
–It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
Close.
It was The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I’m beginning to believe it.
–Clarence Darrow predicting the George W. Bush campaign
