Privacy Policy » 10 Disney & Pixar Movies That Originally Had Different Titles

Titles in particular often get an overhaul, with some switches happening at the very last minute. Whether it’s because the title needs to reflect a plot revision or a new name was going to resonate better with the audience, these Disney flicks all originally had different titles.

Find out what these films were originally called…

When Frozen was in development, it was called “The Snow Queen” — the title of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale that served as inspiration for the movie. It followed a trend of Disney giving their film one word titles, like Tangled, but producer Peter Del Vecho says the decision to change the name didn’t have to do with any other Disney movies. In fact, some countries around the world chose to keep the original title.

“The title Frozen came up independently of the title Tangled. It’s because, to us, it represents the movie. Frozen plays on the level of ice and snow but also the frozen relationship, the frozen heart that has to be thawed. We don’t think of comparisons between Tangled and Frozen, though,” Peter shared.

He continued, “The decision to call the film Frozen was the filmmaker’s decision. The studio’s decision to then call it ‘The Snow Queen’ overseas was because that just resonated stronger in some countries than Frozen. Maybe there’s a richness to ‘The Snow Queen’ in the country’s heritage and they just wanted to emphasize that.”

WALL-E may have been named after the film’s titular character, short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth-class, but it started off with a different title. Back in 1995, Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter and director Andrew Stanton came up with the idea for the film under the name “Trash Planet.” In fact, the movie had a completely different plot too and followed a robot who led a revolution and encountered a nasty race of blobby alien folk. Later in development, the film was changed to “W.A.L.-E” before eventually being renamed WALL-E.

“It was always going to be WALL-E, but originally it just had one L, for Waste Allocation Lifter. But John [Lasseter] didn’t like that idea. He said it looked like whale,” writer Jim Reardon shared. “So they started making lists for alternate titles like ‘Trash Planet’ or ‘Out There,’ which marketing really liked but we weren’t crazy about. One morning I got a rush of blood to the head and went to Andrew and said, ‘What if we add another L?’ And it satisfied John because you could pronounce it phonetically. So we got to use it.”

When development for The Lion King began in the late 1980s, it was originally titled “King of the Kalahari,” according to a treatment written by Tom Disch. Over the next few years, a script was written by J. T. Allen, who called the film The Lion King — but when Ronald Bass stepped in to supervise revisions, the script title was changed to “King of the Beasts.” Throughout rewrites, the name was changed once again, this time to “King of the Jungle.” When it was ultimately realized that the story took place in the savannah and not the jungle, the team reverted back to the title The Lion King.

Long before Tangled hit theaters, it was titled “Rapunzel Unbraided,” a play on the story from Grimms’ Fairy Tales that it was based upon. Eventually, it was shortened to Rapunzel but Disney ultimately decided to change the name because they wanted the film to appeal to a broader audience.

“We did not want to be put in a box,” former president of Walt Disney Animation Studios Ed Catmull told the Los Angeles Times. “Some people might assume it’s a fairy tale for girls when it’s not. We make movies to be appreciated and loved by everybody.”

Early in the development stage for The Emperor’s New Groove, it was actually called Kingdom Of The Sun and was set to be based on Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper. By 1998, not much progress had been made of the film, which was set to premiere in 2000. That’s when director Roger Allers quit and producer Randy Fullmer worked with writers to overhaul the film. During the process, the plot changed and the movie was given the name The Emperor’s New Groove.

“When they went with Mark’s version, the one thing they didn’t do was change the release date. So the Kingdom of the Sun release date became The Emperor’s New Groove release date,” Roger told Vulture, adding that the remaining team had just a year to figure out the new film.

Before Mulan became a beloved feature-length film, it was developed to be a straight-to-video short film called “China Doll.” The movie was set to follow a miserable Chinese girl who was saved by her British love interest and whisked away to Europe. After being stuck in the development stage for years, writers tried to find new inspiration, eventually turning to the Chinese poem, “The Song of Fa Mu Lan” and the children’s book Fa Mulan: The Story of a Woman Warrior.

“When my wife and I got on the project, it’d already gone through a few iterations, all inspired by the San Souci children’s book,” writer Raymond Singer told Slate. “We, along with the story team and one other writer, crafted the story and screenplay that became Mulan. The fourth writer joined the team sometime later and remained on the project after our job was completed.”

Before it premiered in theaters, The Princess And The Frog was originally titled “The Frog Princess,” taking the name from the E. D. Baker novel that inspired the movie. But the movie faced criticism early on for racial and ethnic insensitivities, including the title, which some viewed as a slur toward the French. The title was changed, in addition to several other elements of the movie, including Tiana’s name and job.

“The story takes place in the charming elegance and grandeur of New Orleans’ fabled French Quarter during the Jazz Age,” Disney said in a statement. “Princess Tiana will be a heroine in the great tradition of Disney’s rich animated fairy tale legacy, and all other characters and aspects of the story will be treated with the greatest respect and sensitivity.”

Prior to 2012, many different iterations of Wreck-It Ralph were in development at Disney. Starting in the 1980s, ideas had been pitched for a film called “High Score.” A decade later, it morphed into “Joe Jump” and by the mid-2000s, it was called “Reboot Ralph.” The project was actually announced to the public as “Reboot Ralph” and just a year before the movie premiered, it was changed to Wreck-It Ralph.

Early on in the creative process of Meet the Robinsons, the film had a working title of “A Day with Wilbur Robinson” — the same name as the book that inspired the movie. Disney even announced the project under the working title in 2004, only to have changed it by the time it hit theaters in 2006.

Long before Bolt hit theaters, it was given the title “American Dog” with a slightly different plot line. It was set to follow Henry, a famous canine star, who ends up stranded in the desert with a cat and a radioactive rabbit. After initial screenings, it became clear changes needed to be made — especially since the setting was so close to the recently-released Cars. Director Chris Sanders reportedly resisted the changes and left the project, which was eventually reworked and renamed Bolt.