Movies and TV shows named for a non-lead character

[don_t_ask]

Killing Bono

Vaguely based on the story of Ivan McCormick who, in high school, was a member of the band that became U2.

[RealityChuck]

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Roger dies early on.

The Woman in White. The woman appears sporadically, but is not the lead character.

[Mama_Zappa]

@What_Exit

The entire Thin Man series of movies and the TV show.

The “Thin Man” was not the William Powell character but the person of interest in the first movie.

My husband compared this to the new “Glass Onion - a Knives Out Mystery” when it’s really a Benoit Blanc mystery.

And of course there were all the Pink Panther movies featuring Inspector Clouseau - the Pink Panther was a diamond, stolen in the first movie.

[Telemark]

Bend it Like Beckham

[iamatractorboy]

The Death of Stalin

[Made_in_Macau]

Abigail’s Party - Mike Leigh play and a british tv classic

MiM

[TCMF-2L]

I have mentioned this show previously but it evolves to fit the OP.

Scottish TV had a police show that started in 1983 called Taggart based around police officer Jim Taggart. The actor portraying Taggart, Mark McManus, died in 1994 and the decision was made to have the character die as well.

However the show itself continued until 2010 still called Taggart but now with no one of that name in it. The dramatic focus simply switching to other members of what had been Taggart’s team. Those team members themselves regularly changing over the years.

TCMF-2L

[F.U.Shakespeare]

Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

[Joey_P]

Harvey

[Prof.Pepperwinkle]

Where’s Poppa?

[mbh]

When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?

[silenus]

never mind

[cormac262]

@Joey_P

Harvey

Ding ding ding. Winner !

[Thudlow_Boink]

Another example of a show that lost the character it was originally named after: Valerie’s Family.

Under the title "Valerie " the show originally centered around Valerie Harper in the titular role as a mother trying to juggle her career and raising three sons with an absent airline pilot husband. After the first two seasons, Harper was replaced, following contractual disputes over salary and disputes about the direction her character was going. Her character was killed off at the start of season three and Sandy Duncan joined the cast as Valerie’s sister-in-law and the boys’ aunt. The series was initially retitled Valerie’s Family , but for season four the series was again retitled The Hogan Family .

I know we’re looking for movies and TV shows, but if we cheat and include newspaper comic strips, there’s Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.

Barney Google himself, once the star of the strip and a very popular character in his own right, was at one point almost entirely phased out of the feature. An increasingly peripheral player in his own strip beginning in the late 1930s, Barney was officially “written out” in 1954, although he occasionally returned for cameo appearances, often years apart. During a period between 1997 and 2012, Barney Google was not seen in the strip at all.

[Shoeless]

“Happy Birthday Wanda June”

[Intergalactic_Gladiator]

A bit of a stray but the cartoon (and toy property) Inhumanoids is titled after the group of antagonists. The Inhumanoids aren’t the lead characters really but one or more of them are featured in each episode.

[Prof.Pepperwinkle]

Rebecca

[Spoons]

I wonder if Rosemary’s Baby might fit the criteria.

Rosemary is indeed a lead character, but Rosemary’s baby doesn’t arrive until the last five minutes. I’ve said before that the film should more accurately be titled, Rosemary’s Pregnancy.

[CalMeacham]

I think we’ve had a thread in the past about movies and plays where the named lead barely appears.

Count Dracula, for instance, gets very little “screen time” in Stoker’s novel. The movies and plays give him a bit more, but the real main characters are the vampire hunters.

Similarly, The Hound of the Baskervilles only shows up at the very beginning and the very end of both novel and the film adaptations. I saw a stage adaptation once where my main thought throughout was how the heck they were going to show the creature and make it look scary. It showed up – a stage-sized puppet – for one scene at the end.

[RickJay]

@iamatractorboy

Dr No is barely in, erm, Dr No.

There’s a lot of Auric Goldfinger in “Goldfinger,” but he isn’t the lead character, James Bond is.

Roger Rabbit isn’t the main character of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”

Rachel isn’t the main character of “Rachel Getting Married.”

There are three Heathers in “Heathers” but the main character is Veronica. Veronica is played by Winona Ryder, who was in “Beetlejuice,” and Beetlejuice is not the main character of that movie.