Aye, that's the rub! How to find a title, and not just any title. It's got to be THE title. The Be All. End All. The Mother of all titles! Nowadays, it's just single-word titles such as-- Gravity Interstellar Prometheus Inferno So how does one seek out the one-word wonder title. Maybe the word has dual meanings. Gravity for example. Gravity is the force that dangerously plummets the hapless astronaut to Earth, or the lack of [gravity] can also be as deadly when one drifts aimlessly in space and runs out of oxygen. Then there is the "gravity" of the situation. One's dumb luck is that you get stuck in a damaged space ship that options are just running out. That's serious gravity. I don't know about you, but I'm still stuck on 3-word titles like-- Above the Law Hard to Kill On Deadly Ground Today You Die Yes, cheese whiz is an amalgam of mineral, vegetable and aminal. (Yes, I said aminal.) Food for thoughts??
Screenwriting : Titles by Larry DeGala
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Always use a number with your title. Sequels often make more than the originals. The big question is, Latin or Arabic?
Right, so add the "2" now and get that sequel crowd lining up! For the actual sequel, add 3 or maybe add "Rise of" to the beginning or ":The Beginning" to the end. Eastwood really should have called his new movie "Sully II." THAT's a title. :)
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Single word titles might be a bit of a trend right now but I don't think you should stress about following that trend. Who cares if it's one word or two words or three words or four? The title should be organic to the story and if you've currently got a three word title, then that's fine. I've never even considered word count for my titles and I find the title to be one of the easiest parts of each of my scripts.
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Crime novelist Ed McBain was famous for his one word titles with multiple meanings: HEAT, BREAD, SHOTGUN, JIGSAW, FUZZ, GHOSTS.... I think the real key is to make sure the script really explores those multiple meanings so the title is more than the obvious. I do a lot of two worders - HARD EVIDENCE, SOFT TARGET, etc... but I've also had IMPLICATED and TREACHEROUS make it from page to screen. What you probably want to avoid are "marquee busters" - titles so long and complicated that no one is going to remember them and they take up so much room on the cinema sign that they cut it down to two words that mean nothing. Also, titles that require the audience has already seen the movie to understand, or titles that require some special knowledge. Oh, and super generic or obvious titles like those Chinese Translations Of Popular American Movie Titles (THE SIXTH SENSE = HE'S A GHOST!) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11148825/The-Greatest-...
I make it a rule to steer clear of the one-word title concerning screenwriting. You're bound to bump into a fellow writer who has published a script with the exact title; but the context of either script is like night and day!
Out of the top 200 grossers internationally, only 36 are one-word titles. Of course, the top two are "Avatar" and "Titanic," so...
Sell the script. The Producer(Buyer) has final say.