Next week the new movie starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, The Lost City, will arrive in theaters. But fans that have been following this particular project will know that, once upon a time, it had a slightly different name. However, Sandra Bullock for one is glad the movie is no longer called The Lost City of D.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, alongside castmates Channing Tatum and Daniel Radcliffe, Sandra Bullock is asked specifically about the decision to change the name. And the actress was very complimentary of the studio. She felt that “the D” was perhaps a bit too limiting and that by removing it, it made the film perhaps a bit too welcoming to a broader audience. After all, not everybody loves “the D.” As Bullock puts it,
I’d like to think that Paramount became very evolved and thought they didn’t want to play favorites. Why does the D get all the attention? Why not ‘Lost City of V’? Not everyone’s into D. Some people really admire and like the V.
The Lost City of D is still the title of the romance novel that exists within the story of the film itself, we’ve seen that in the trailer, but at some point the decision was made to “drop the D” from the movie’s actual title. While Sandra Bullock applauded this decision, her co-star Channing Tatum has previously gone on record against the change, saying…
I wished they wouldn’t have dropped the ‘D,’ You never drop the ‘D.’
So it seems there are some differing opinions about the decision to “drop the D.” It certainly makes sense within the movie for the book to be called The Lost City of D. It is a romance novel after all, and so the suggestiveness of the whole thing is part of the point. There’s an argument to be made that for the same reasons that it would work as a romance novel title, it would work as a movie title. It certainly would be memorable and might catch the interest of an audience from the title alone.
At the same time, it’s possible the entendre in the title might have turned some people off, which may be why the title of the film was changed to the simpler, if more generic, The Lost City. The movie itself sounds like it will still have many of those romance novel elements, with a comedic twist. With the box office being as challenging as it already is right now, no studio wants to hamper its chances for success.
And certainly Sandra Bullock isn’t wrong. The Lost City is certainly a more inclusive title. Not everyone is into D, but everybody is onto a good Sandra Bullock rom-com, and it sounds like this one will be just that. .
