Ugh... Movie coming out with my preferred title

[JRTomlin]

So I had just decided to entitle my next novel 'The King's Man' and did a Google search. Yep, what looks like a pretty big movie coming out next year with that title. Normally unless it's a best seller I don't worry too much about another novel having the same or a very similar title. It's not ideal, but hard to avoid too. But... if that is a major movie it could be a problem. Thoughts?

(Frankly, I think the plot of the movie looks rather stupid but that's just my taste)

[TimothyEllis]

Get yours out first.

[JRTomlin]

The trailer for the movie is out already though. I hadn't heard of it until I did a search, but it's not my kind of movie so no surprise there.

It's due out in Feb 2020 apparently. My novel definitely won't be ready that soon. Historical novels just take longer than that to write - for me anywya.

[Simon Haynes]

Sorry to hear about that - what a pain.

I get you with the 'longer to write historicals' too, and it's not just the research. I was aiming for a nice quick 75k read and I just hit 95k with around 10k still to go!

[JRTomlin]

With me, it is more the research than the writing. Pretty much every detail in my novels is researched. *sigh*

[j tanner]

It's so different from what you're doing I wouldn't worry about it. You'll have a few weeks of crossover as it goes through its typical release cycle and then it's just another backlist movie.

[Michelle Louring]

Is the movie the same genre as your book?
If you're book is not at all similar, I don't think it's too big of a problem. After all, "The King's Man" is pretty generic.

[notthatamanda]

Well I'm sure you know title's aren't covered by copyright, so no concern there.  I wouldn't worry about it.  My second book, I googled it when I came up with the title, nothing. Then I googled it after I released it and one of the top pop stars in the world had released a song with the same title.  Not only that, each of the books in my trilogy has a song in it, and the titles are the song.  (I wrote lyrics for all of them in the books).  The meaning of the songs were totally different.

I have a book where the lead character is an actor and I needed titles for the movies he was in.  The first movie was okay, but the second movie, I drove myself crazy trying to find a title that wasn't already a movie.  Ended up using the title of one of my other books which worked fabulously, plot wise.

There is so much repetition in titles it's really hard to avoid.

Just remember to put movie, dvd and trailer, in your negative keywords when advertising it.

[She-la-te-da]

It sucks, but if the movie is different, it might be worth just going with it. Unless something fabulous comes to you, then roll with that.

[DrewMcGunn]

It looks like a clone of the mashup of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that came out several years ago. While it may be set in the past, I think the risk anyone would confuse your historical fiction for a movie adaptation of a comic book is low.

I wouldn't worry about it.

Funny story... when I released my first novel, I found a post-apocalyptical tale with the same name. I went with my gut and kept my title unchanged. My story's been ranked higher than that one since I released it two years ago. And fortunately, nobody's ever associated either story with the other.

[hjmoritzo]

It's a prequel to the two recent 'Kingsman' movies (last one had Elton John of all people in it!).
Unless you specialise in writing about James Bond-esqe secret societies that protect the world you don't have anything to worry about, in fact it you do you'll be right on trend

[JRTomlin]

Thanks for all the comments. Definitely no James Bond associations in my historical fiction so maybe that will be okay.