Kevin Smith is having title trouble again. After previously dealing with censorship related to the title Zach and Miri Make a Porno, the filmmaker has run into a snag with his next movie, originally called A Couple of Dicks. Warner Bros. has changed the title of the comedy, which will star Bruce Willis and Tracey Morgan, to A Couple of Cops, obviously so as not to confuse anyone with the multiple (including the offensive) meanings of “dick.”

But this can’t be the end, because nobody in their right mind would distribute a movie with that new title. I’m pretty sure the word “cops” is poisonous. Has there been a single good movie with that word in the title since Buster Keaton’s 1922 short? Singularly, “cop” will occasionally work, such as in Beverly Hills Cop, Super Cop, Cop Land and Kindergarten Cop. But pluralized, I think the best we’ve seen is Cops and Robbersons. Recall that Hollywood Homicide was once titled “Two Cops,” which is quite like Smith’s movie’s name, but better. And maybe the original title cursed it, because the movie flopped. So, unless A Couple of Cops involves fumbling policemen resembling the Keystone Cops, it’s certain that the studio will need to brainstorm a new name quick, if it’s not already too late. Or, if Smith doesn’t really care about this movie, which he didn’t write and is seemingly only directing for the easy money, perhaps he can ultimately take his own name off and let it be an Alan Smithee film.

Here are some of the negative responses to the name change from around the web:

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• Julie Taymor is directing a film adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which will star plenty of Oscar-caliber performers, including Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, Djimon Hounsou and possibly Geoffrey Rush (Also: Russell Brand as the jester, Trinculo!). Taymor’s version should be interesting considering her postmodern take on the Bard’s Titus Andronicus for her film debut, and she’s already revealed one twist by casting Mirren in the lead, as a gender-reversed “Prospera”. But I bet it still won’t out-arthouse Peter Greenaway’s film version of the play.
• Forest Whitaker, who has already portrayed jazz saxaphonist Charlie Parker on the big screen, will play Louis Armstrong in a biopic obviously titled What a Wonderful World. Whitaker is also directing the film, though, so don’t expect this to be quite as Oscar-baited as it seems.
• Hollywood is going ahead with more than 40 major projects that will each lack strike protection despite the continued possibility of an actor walkout. According to Variety, the studios are indeed worried about the financial ramifications of a SAG strike, but they’re more concerned about not having enough tentpoles to release in 2010 and 2011. Because moviegoers will put up a fuss if they don’t get their Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 and remakes of RoboCop, Fame, Footloose, Clash of the Titans and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
• Oh, and we can now add Overture’s newly announced remake of George Romero’s The Crazies to the pile, too.
• What should we do about the financial crisis? Kill the poor — or eat them? — says a new sci-fi film titled Fortuna that’s heading into production next month. Likened to Soylent Green, the pic will be set in 2100 when the middle class is gone and the rich have created a deadly contest with which to eliminate poverty.

• Department of Bad Ideas In The Name of Box Office Equivalency, Part 1: Apparently inspired by the success of Indiana Jones and It Really Didn’t Make THAT Much Money, Paramount is hiring Brett Ratner to direct Eddie Murphy in a fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie. It was Murphy’s idea, and there’s currently no script.
• Department of Bad Ideas In The Name of Box Office Equivalency, Part 2: Apparently emboldened by the success of Transformers, Michael Bay is working on another film based on a toy: Ouija. Yes, that board with the alphabet on it that allows slumber partying fifth graders to talk to the dead.
• Department of Things We Can’t Complain About: In honor of their 85th anniversary, Warner Brothers is dipping into their catalog of 6,800 films to push forth a ton of new DVDs and reissues, including “sets of superhero films, musicals and Westerns, including three editions of the MGM’s How the West Was Won, all slotted for third-quarter release, followed in the fourth quarter by horror and holiday collections, including an ultimate collector’s edition of A Christmas Story.”