With Tron Legacy out I’ve been thinking about the original. The movie is called Tron, yet the Tron character doesn’t get that much screen time. Flynn/Clu get much more screen time. Hell, Boxleitner in general doesn’t get that much screen time. There are two main problems to be resolved. Flynn getting the evidence that he created the popular games instead of Dillinger, and the MCP, who Tron is programmed to stop, but doesn’t make any headway until Flynn is sucked into the computer.
So, did they call it Tron because it’s a cool name for a movie? Was Boxleitner going to be the star but then the studio execs decided to make Bridges the star of the movie?
Also, can you think of other movies where the character whose name appears in the title actually isn’t the star or main character of the movie?
Lots of James Bond movies (Dr. No, Goldfinger, Octopussy) should qualify.
I’m more interested in movies where the title character never even appears as a character, like Hitchcock’s Rebecca, Oliver Stone’s JFK, and Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman. (Has there ever been a movie made of Waiting for Godot?)
There’s Chasing Amy, Amy only appears in an anecdote.
Two from the Coen Brothers: Waring Hudsucker appears only very briefly in The Hudsucker Proxy, and The Big Lebowski is not Jeff Bridges but the other guy.
**Henry and June **half-qualifies; June barely appears and the movie is more about Henry and Anais.
And not to trip Godwin’s Law here, but most movies with “Hitler” in the title don’t have Adolf front and center.
**
MacArthur’s Children** didn’t have MacArthur in it at all. Or his literal children, if he had any.
“The Thin Man” in the original movie wasn’t William Powell, but he became associated with the title so much that subsequent movies cashed in on the title.
The monster movie Gorgo would give the impression that Gorgo is the monster terrorizing London. He’s not. I can’t tell if Gorgo gets more screen time, but the memorable monster isn’t him.
Bend it Like Beckham only has a cameo of David Beckham.
Cookie is dead in Cookie’s Fortune.
Where’s Marlowe? doesn’t have Marlowe in it (it refers to Philip Marlowe).
To Wong Foo Fu Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar doesn’t have either of the characters in the titles.
Harvey isn’t the main character of Harvey – he’s not even shown on screen (except in a portrait)
Dr. Strangelove gets only a scene or two in the movie named for him.
Bill only appears in a small portion of Kill Bill.
The Bride of Frankenstein only has a small role in the movie (I’m talking about Valarie Hobson, not Elsa Lanchester, but Lanchester only appears in two scenes).
Liberty Valence isn’t the main character in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Lord of the Rings, aka Sauron, has almost no screen time at all; his only major scene is the first movie’s prologue, and from then on he’s just a giant blazing eye on top of some kind of Minecraft-shaped tower.
Dr. Strangelove doesn’t appear in his movie at all until the third act, and he’s not even a pivotal character (although Peter Sellers’ two other roles are more significant.)
Rosemary’s Baby is never visible onscreen, although one might make an argument that it’s a pretty central character and it is often onscreen but not visible.