In a curious move, similar to the one done by Andrew Stanton with John Carter, Martin Scorsese has dropped the surname from the title of his next movie. Originally called Hugo Cabret, which itself was trimmed down from the novel’s lengthier title The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the 3D family film is now simply titled Hugo. The recent classification of the trailer has confirmed this, as has journalist Jeff Schneider in his tweet:
Did anyone else notice in my GK Films/OUTBACK story that Martin Scorsese’s next seems to have been retitled simply HUGO.
I think it’s an odd move but I don’t hate the title, from a marketing point of view it’s entirely ludicrous. It officially removes most of the connections to Brian Selznick’s novel with the only selling point now for families being The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas actor Asa Butterfield.
To start off, Scorsese isn’t renowned for his family friendly affairs. Plus the cast, which includes, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ben Kingsley, Ray Winstone, Michael Stuhlbarg, Christopher Lee, Jude Law and even Chloe Moretz don’t have that child-friendly pedigree either.
It will mostly come down to the trailers, one of which will be coming very soon. The Playlist dug up some classification dates and the trailer for Hugo was classified two days ago. Likely, it will drop within the next week and we’ll be able to make a more fair judgement on the film at that time.
Hugo hits cinemas on November 23rd.