Why Doug Liman Changed the Title of ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ to ‘Live Die Repeat’

Edge of Tomorrow was one of those inspired movies that suffered from a weird ad campaign and diminished box office returns. Doug Liman’s 2014 mind-warping sci-fi didn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserved, and Liman thinks it has something to do with the title — which is why it got a new one as soon as the DVD hit shelves.

Liman fought against Warner Bros. preferred “Edge of Tomorrow,” and the title he was partial to got relegated to a tagline on all the movie’s posters. While talking to Den of Geek, Liman provided some insight into the weird titling process, and how he, ultimately, got his way.

So the book was called All You Need Is Kill. Japanese. I was making a comedy – an action comedy, and All You Need Is Kill didn’t feel like it was the tone of the movie I had made. The studio wanted to call it Edge Of Tomorrow, and I wanted to call it Live Die Repeat. I fought vehemently and lost. And then when the film came out and people loved it but the box-office wasn’t as good as it should have been, I really railed into the executive at Warner Bros who’d insisted that Edge Of Tomorrow was the better title.

“I was like, ‘It clearly is not. You were wrong.’ I committed the cardinal sin of telling somebody in Hollywood when they’re wrong, like, literally – I ended up having to call the person and apologize for pointing out that they were wrong. And they started titling it the title I always thought it should have, which is Live Die Repeat. But they tiptoed around it, and when we make the sequel, it’ll be permanently titled Live Die Repeat. The sequel will be Live Die Repeat and Repeat.

Of the three titles we have to choose from — All You Need Is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow, and Live Die Repeat — I’d say Live Die Repeat makes the most sense. “Edge of Tomorrow” kinda describes the plot of the movie, but it’s still this weird, esoteric string of words that almost means something coherent. That said, Live Die Repeat and Repeat is still a mouthful that plenty of people will be calling “Edge of Tomorrow 2” when it comes out.