Reverse the Curse: Why David Duchovny Had to Change Title for Movie, “The Algorithm Rules the World”

This week, David Duchovny’s latest movie, Reverse the Curse, hits theaters. The film, which was screened on the festival circuit months ago, centers on a Yankees Stadium employee who is called back to his hometown to care for his dying father, a die-hard Red Sox fan. Against the backdrop of the 1978 American League East pennant race, the movie’s original title was Bucky F*cking Dent. The movie even screened with that title, generating a ton of buzz, particularly among baseball fans old enough to remember who Bucky Dent is. For those of you who fall into that category, Dent was a shortstop for the New York Yankees who was at the height of his talents in the late 1970s. He is most famous for…well, even though it’s almost 50 years ago now, we’ll skip that part because it likely spoils a huge part of this movie.

Duchovny said that after the movie was acquired by Vertical Entertainment, he was encouraged to change the title. While it sounds like the call was ultimately his (Duchovny stars in the movie but also directed it), he told ComicBook that it was all about making sure the movie had a chance to make its money back.

“The reason is, because the algorithm rules the world and I was told that the algorithm doesn’t like asterisks, or that people are bad at typing in asterisks, and it’s possible if they typed in ‘Bucky F*cking Dent‘ that they wouldn’t get anything — and also the algorithm doesn’t like curses because it likes to ‘protect’ children, and so a movie with ‘Fuck’ in its title, or an asterisk ‘F*ck’ in its title, might get hidden from kids that might normally enjoy this film. Unfortunately, the algorithm doesn’t need to hide violence and s–t like that, but it will hide an asterisk and the word ‘f–k.’ So that was the idea, was this is a small movie that needs as much help as it can get to reach a wide audience, and it was reasoned to me, ‘would you change it in order to not have these possibilities of it getting hidden somehow?’”

You can see the official synopsis for Reverse the Curse below.

Reverse the Curse follows Ted (Logan Marshall-Green), a failed writer-turned-Yankees Stadium peanut slinger who moves back home after learning of the failing health of his Red Sox-obsessed father, Marty (David Duchovny). While Marty strives to make amends for his past, his health drops abruptly whenever his beloved Sox lose a game. To keep his dad’s spirits up, Ted takes matters into his own hands and manufactures a winning streak with the help of a crew of dad’s neighborhood pals. In the process, Ted strikes up a bond with Marty’s charming “Death Specialist,” Marianna (Stephanie Beatriz), and the prospect of a new love reignites his ambitions. An ode to the bond between father and son, this warm and witty film demonstrates how life truly belongs to the losers, and that the longshots are the ones worth betting on.

Reverse the Curse will be in theaters tomorrow.