Why does Dead Men Tell No Tales have a different title in the UK?

Question

Promotional posters and websites for cinemas in the UK are referring to the new Pirates of the Caribbean film by the subtitle "Salazar's Revenge".

What is the reason for this change? Is it related to a title with a similar name in the UK like what happened with the Avengers film clashing with an old television series?

Answer 1

The subtitle "Salazar's Revenge" is being used for this film in a number of countries worldwide.

Films are often re-titled for local markets for various reasons:

• The title doesn't translate well into the local language, or contains an obscure reference. For example "Live Free or Die Hard" was known as "Die Hard 4" outside the USA because the original title references the motto of the state of New Hampshire, a reference that would not be understood in other countries. In this case, the old proverb "Dead men tell no tales" may be unfamiliar in non-English speaking countries, and/or there is easy translation that carries the same sense of meaning.
• Sensitivity to recent events. Films, music and events are often renamed in the wake of wars, terrorism and major catastrophes to avoid negative associations and accusations of insensitivity. For example, in the early 1990s British group "Massive Attack" temporarily shortened their name to "Massive" to avoid controversy due to the Gulf War. The "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" were originally marketed as "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" in the UK due to the perceived negative and violent associations of the word "ninja".

Given that the proverb "dead men tell no tales" is fairly well known in the UK, it's possible that the name "Dead Men Tell No Tales" was considered too controversial and potentially insensitive for the UK market (maybe related to the recent history of terror attacks in the UK and Europe) and therefore the alternative international title was used instead.

Answer 2

Besides the two possible reasons for name changes that Nathan mentions in his answer (avoiding obscure references and sensitivity to recent events), there is a third possibility: legal disputes over the trademark. Someone else in the UK may have claimed the phrase "Dead Men Tell No Tales" as their intellectual property, leading Disney to fall back to the alternate title it had already developed.

Unfortunately, I cannot find any definite information to say whether this is or is not the case. But I have found a 1938 British film called Dead Men Tell No Tales, so if there was a trademark dispute, that film might be the source.

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As a side note, the earliest reference to the UK name change that I can find is this Yahoo! Movies post from last October.

Answer 3

First time here; I discovered this thread via Google whilst trying to find the answer of the film's renaming myself. Having not found anything conclusive, I did some more digging and believe I've identified the answer.

If you look the film up on IMDb and go into the page listing international release dates and titles, one needs only a basic understanding of language to deduce that Salazar's Revenge is the title everywhere except North America and Portugal.

In other words, DMTNT is the exception, and SR the rule. It doesn't take a genius to deduce, then, that Salazar's Revenge must be Disney's preferred title for the film, but something stopped them calling it that in those two territories noted above.

To put it another way: the original question here, and on other similar posts around the web, is looking at the name the wrong way around. Salazar's Revenge is the main title, with Dead Men Tell No Tales being the renamed, secondary choice.

So why would Disney not use SR in those territories? A quick Google provides pretty compelling possibilities.

• In the case of Portugal, the country's 100th Prime Minister, in office for the incredibly long period of 1932 - 1968, was named Salazar.

• For North America, a man named Ken Salazar was Secretary of the Interior under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, and was to play a key role should Hillary Clinton have won the Presidency in 2016.

There are references to Dead Men Tell No Tales having bean POTC 5's working title since at least 2013, if not earlier, so it doesn't seem an unfair assumption that, feeling they were unable to use the preferred subtitle for the film, they simply stuck with what it was already being referred to as.

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I have no association with Disney and can't say in complete certainty that my theory is correct, but it seems compelling enough to me to be worth sharing. I hope someone finds it helpful, or at least of interest.

Answer 4

If you've seen the teaser trailer to Pirates of the Caribbean 5 you'll know that Salazar is the film's primary villain, played by Javier Bardem. The film will follow Salazar and his ghost pirate crew as they attempt to kill every pirate in the caribbean, but there's a special target on the back of one Captain Jack Sparrow.

There's no specific word on why the change was made though in reporting the news Den of Geek theorizes that it has to do with what trade marks are available. If there was difficulty getting the trademark for Dead Men Tell No Tales in the UK because of similarly titled projects, then Disney would change the name so they could secure a trademark on a different name. The name change isn't only happening in the UK. The name change also covers the film's release in France, Italy, and Spain.

There's one significant positive to the name change in Europe. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a mouth full. It's a really long title that just doesn't flow very well when you're trying to discuss it with people. Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge loses the connection to the refrain that you hear repeated throughout the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, but it's a heck of a lot easier to say.