Editorial Staff
When the Tom Cruise-starring film adaptation of Japanese manga title “All You Need is Kill” was released in theaters as “Edge of Tomorrow”, only to do lukewarm business, director Doug Liman was convinced it was because of the title.
The title he had suggested Warner Bros use for the movie was “Live. Die. Repeat” – a title that would ultimately be pride of place on the film’s eventual DVD and Blu-ray sleeve. At the time of the release, the studio didn’t agree with Liman’s proclamation that “Edge of Tomorrow” wasn’t a fitting title for an action-comedy.
Warner Bros has essentially admitted their mistake by calling the upcoming sequel “Live Die Repeat and Repeat”. Furthermore, they’re about to officially retitle the first film too.
Speaking with Den of Geek about the sequel, Liman went into detail over the title changes for the first film.
“So the book was called All You Need Is Kill. Japanese. I was making a comedy – an action comedy, and All You Need Is Kill didn’t feel like it was the tone of the movie I had made. The studio wanted to call it Edge Of Tomorrow, and I wanted to call it Live Die Repeat. I fought vehemently and lost.
And then when the film came out and people loved it but the box-office wasn’t as good as it should have been, I really railed into the executive at Warner Bros who’d insisted that Edge Of Tomorrow was the better title.
I was like, ‘It clearly is not. You were wrong.’ I committed the cardinal sin of telling somebody in Hollywood when they’re wrong, like, literally – I ended up having to call the person and apologize for pointing out that they were wrong.
And they started titling it the title I always thought it should have, which is Live Die Repeat. But they tiptoed around it, and when we make the sequel, it [the first film] will be permanently titled Live Die Repeat. The sequel will be Live Die Repeat and Repeat.”
The next movie, said to be part-prequel part-sequel, will again star Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. A production start date has yet to be set.
