Hollywood’s Name Change Game— “Untitled Robert Zemeckis Film Project” Titled “Women of Marwen” Retitled Again to “Welcome to Marwen”

Actress Eiza González prepares to film a scene during 2017’s shooting of the recently retitled “Welcome to Marwen;” scheduled to debut in theaters November 2018. (Photo: Universal Pictures) Click to enlarge.

Security is still tight around the tiny town of Marwen.

What’s the hold-up? Universal Pictures has yet to release an official video trailer or ANY official press photos promoting its upcoming film, “Welcome to Marwen.” Indeed, intel is SO scarce that the ONLY nugget of additional information we’ve been able to gather is that the title of the movie had been changed—again. Mark Otnes, owner of Patches of Pride and supplier of 1:6 miniatures to the film project, confirmed that security has always been extremely tight, stating:

“While we were working on the orders we’d received from the film’s costumers for miniature patches, armbands, etc., they repeatedly referred to the film only as ‘The Untitled Robert Zemeckis Project. ‘Nothing else. Then, a couple of months later, the working title of ‘Women of Marwen’ was widely spread across the internet. We thought that was that. But just recently (in June 2018), the film was retitled—this time to ‘Welcome to Marwen.’ I don’t know the reasons for all of that subtle wordplay, but I expect it was due to some sort of Hollywood focus group testing, perhaps influenced by ‘brilliant’ participant responses such as, ‘I like the word WELCOME. It seems very friendly.’ But who knows? Nobody’s talking!”

So what else do we know? Not much. In fact, only the scantest of details about the film project can be found (as of today) over on Wikipedia HERE:

“On April 28, 2017, it was announced that Robert Zemeckis would next direct an untitled fantasy-drama film that would star Steve Carell. On May 19, 2017, it was announced that Leslie Mann and Janelle Monae had joined the cast. On May 23, 2017, Eiza Gonzalez joined the cast. In June 2017, it was reported that Diane Kruger had joined the cast to portray the villain while Gwendoline Christie also joined the cast. In July 2017, Merritt Wever and Neil Jackson joined the cast of the film. On August 6, 2017, the studio hired a German actor Falk Hentschel to play the role of a villain, as Hauptsturmsfuhrer Ludwig Topf, a Nazi captain to a squad of SS Storm Troopers who terrify the people of Belgium. On August 21, 2017, the director’s wife Leslie Zemeckis was cast in the film for an unspecified role. Principal photography on the film began in Vancouver, Canada on August 14, 2017. The filming was completed around October 19, 2017. In June 2018, the film was officially titled Welcome to Marwen.”

Bottom Line: Let’s hope the good folks in the PR department at Universal Pictures are hard at work on promotional materials for this VERY promising movie featuring 1:6 scale action figures, vehicles and other such miniature products. We’ll continue to keep an eye out for any further information and promise to pass it on to you HERE on The Joe Report as soon as it becomes available.