Writing a screenplay or creating a television series is hard work. Throughout the process, you encounter one storytelling hurdle after another, and even though you know better, every time you clear that hurdle, you believe you're home free. You're not. And once you finish that first draft, you get to head over the hurdle-laden track that is rewriting.
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Sometimes, every single aspect of this process is loaded with challenges. You inexplicably find yourself struggling to find the right character names and place names. Everything right down to coming up with the right title of the show or movie itself is a bear. When this becomes a problem at a studio or network level, you get marketing departments involved, which leads to brainstorming sessions that provide an overabundance of unusable titles.
If German playwright Peter Weiss had his way, the whole world would know his 1963 Brechtian masterpiece as "The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade." This, however, does not come close to fitting on a theater or movie marquee, so the title is typically shortened to "Marat/Sade." For a long time, the unremarkable Bruce Willis action-thriller "Striking Distance" was known as "Three Rivers;" The title change infuriated Pittsburgh residents and absolutely no one else. Are you a "Pretty Woman" fan? Did you know that it was nearly called "3000" (in reference to the amount of money Julia Roberts' sex worker received for her toil in the original screenplay)? Well, the popular crime drama "NCIS" nearly had a redundant mouthful of a title, "Navy NCIS."
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NCIS' original title came from CBS' Department of Redundancy Department
Titles can be tough! No one knows this better than Donald P. Bellisario, the veteran television producer who created such massively successful series as "Magnum P.I.," "Quantum Leap," and "JAG." When he began developing a "JAG" spinoff about the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Bellisario wanted to go the acronym route again. CBS, however, wasn't sure TV audiences would be receptive to another series with an acronym title, particularly one that wasn't a word (like "JAG" or "CHiPs"). They also might've been worried that they were pressing their acronym luck given the spinoff-spawning success of "CSI," so they insisted that he call his new show "Navy NCIS."
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Bellisario steadfastly refused. As he told The New York Times in 2005:
"I fought that idea all the way. I did not want the show to be just a stopgap for CBS. I foresaw CBS saying this is good for now and always looking for something better."
Bellisario stuck to his guns and hammered the network over the stupidity of, essentially, calling his new show "Navy Naval Criminal Investigative Service." It would have been the television title equivalent of when folks say "ATM Machine" (since that would be "Automated Teller Machine Machine"). Since premiering on CBS in 2003, "NCIS" has produced six spinoffs, while the flagship series is still one of the most popular shows on television.
I know what you're thinking, and, yes, it's time for CBS to explore the "Marat/Sade" universe.
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