Franchise-Driven Retitling

Sometimes people come up with a name that is perfectly reasonable for a work but is not reasonable for a franchise and with a new franchise being built, they have to go back and rename the work for all future promotional materials.

This can often come about because the title of the first work depends heavily on an element in that work but not in the others. Possibly, the executives have chosen a theme to market and name the series (such as the lead character's name) and the early installment is the odd man out.

Naturally this can be happening when you have a first work that nobody was sure was going to be popular and so they didn't think of a franchise when naming it. It can also happen during an adaptation process- book series often also only pick up a series name much further down the line, often unofficially, and often don't bother with this process. When they come to being adapted to another medium, somebody will have plans for a franchise but not a name.

Subtrope of Retronym.


 * Raiders of the Lost Ark was later renamed to Indiana Jones and the Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
 * First Blood led to the sequel Rambo First Blood Part II and the third film is called Rambo III, dropping the First Blood part of the title. Confusingly enough, the fourth film is simply titled Rambo, the original plan being to mirror what was done with Rocky Balboa and call it John Rambo (as it was in some regions).
 * The book The Lost World was adapted into the movie The Lost World Jurassic Park. Not as cheap as it seems, considering there already was a famous dinosaur adventure story called The Lost World—one which had directly inspired Michael Crichton, and (to make things more complicated) inspired the evolution theory which Crichton's book The Lost World was named after. People could have been forgiven for getting confused.
 * The British comedy films Follow That Camel and Call Me A Cab were retitled when the producers realised they were Carry On films in all but name. So they became Carry On, Follow That Camel and Carry On, Cabbie.
 * The first Star Wars film was originally called just Star Wars. The 1980 sequel, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, featured an episode number and subtitle in the opening crawl as part of its George Lucas Throwback nature to give the impression of a long running film serial. When the original film was re-released in 1981, Episode IV: A New Hope was added above the original opening crawl.
 * Following Twilight, the film adaptations of the novels New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn all carried the supertitle The Twilight Saga.