Hollywood Gets Lost In Translation

August 2, 2008— -- MEXICO CITY — This weekend, thousands of Mexicans will line up at theaters to see "The Knight of the Night", "Super Agent 86" and "The End of Time."

Never heard of them?

Those are the literal translations of the Spanish titles given to "The Dark Knight", "Get Smart" and "The Happening", examples of the marketing tactics that can leave cinephiles baffled as Hollywood reaches out to increasingly important foreign audiences.

Titles are often tweaked to sound better in the local language, or to provide a hint of the plot to audiences who might be skeptical of what is, to them, a foreign film. That's why Steve Carell's "Get Smart" is playing variously as "Max the Menace" (France), "Agent Smart: Casino Totale" (Italy), "Is the Spy Capable or Not?" (Taiwan), and "Confused Spy" (China).

Local customs are also taken into account. Last year's comedy hit "Knocked Up" was given the gentler title "Slightly Pregnant" in Roman Catholic Peru and the gloriously blunt "One Night, Big Belly" in China.

Hollywood has taken a more active role in translating its titles to make sure "global launches" go well, says David Weitzner, former chief of worldwide promotion for 20th Century Fox and Universal. Some films make half their money overseas.

The translations used to be left to foreign film distributors, with dubious results. Some titles gave away too much of the plot, such as when "Rain Man" became "When Brothers Meet" in Latin America.

"We have to pay much more attention to the foreign market than we used to," Weitzner says.

Viviana Hernández, a moviegoer in Mexico City, said the latest "Batman" film, "The Dark Knight", would have sounded "too evil … (like) a horror movie" if its title had been translated directly into Spanish.

U.S. titles for foreign movies are often odd, too. "Open Your Eyes", a Spanish film, became "Vanilla Sky" when it was remade with Tom Cruise.

Hawley is Latin America correspondent for USA TODAY and The Arizona Republic.