Imagine you’re at the movie theatre. You’re scanning the offerings, deciding what to see. Here are some of the titles:
Tortured savant can’t commit to love
Girl learns true love is sacrifice, not a kiss
Undersized linebacker justifies existence by making Notre Dame’s team
Boy sees dead people because he’s dead
Now, you might still be intrigued enough to see one of these films. But Good Will Hunting has lost the mystery surrounding its protagonist, Frozen has surrendered its biggest twist, Rudy suddenly seems less romantic, and as for The Sixth Sense—well, I suppose you can probably save your time and money on that one.
Hollywood comes up with poetic, ambiguous, intriguing titles for their films for a reason. If you’re sufficiently interested in the star, you might still go see a movie with a prosaic title like the imagined ones above. Your engagement in the plot, however, is undoubtedly going to suffer.
Engaging movies thus start at the box office (if not before). A title that grabs your attention and piques your interest primes you for a satisfying moviegoing experience. “The Sixth Sense? I wonder what that might be…” This is such an obvious point that I hesitate to belabor it. And yet many preachers have not absorbed the lesson.