Breaking: Does Ridley Scott’s Exodus have a new title?

A few weeks ago, I noted that an article in the French Première magazine had indicated that “Exodus” might be just a working title for Ridley Scott’s upcoming Moses movie. Now comes word, via Hitfix, that a new title was in fact announced today at CinemaCon in Las Vegas — but it’s a bit of a head-scratcher.

Supposedly, the new title for the film is Exodus: Gods and Kings. And what’s strange about this — though Hitfix doesn’t seem to realize it — is that Exodus and Gods and Kings were actually two separate titles for two separate Moses movies that were being developed by two separate studios. One of those movies was the Ridley Scott movie, which got the green light from Fox last year. The other movie was being developed at Warner Brothers and, for a while, had Steven Spielberg attached to direct.

So have the two projects merged somehow? Unlikely, as Gods and Kings was still in active development at Warner when Fox gave Exodus the green light.

Can Fox use a title that Warner had already claimed dibs on? I have no idea what the legal issues would be there, but it does seem like the sort of thing that at least begs for a reaction from the other studio, assuming their film is still in development. Alternatively, Fox could have cleared the name change with Warner beforehand.

I will update this post if any more information comes to light.