“You Betcha It’s Real!”: Town of Brainerd Loses Out on Movie Title Fame

I was watching the iconic movie 'Fargo' over the weekend and was curious as to why despite most of the action in the movie taking in place in Brainerd, why it was named after a North Dakota town.

Hollywood Executives Thought Brainerd Was a Fictional Location

It turns out that there are a couple of reasons behind the decision to call the movie "Fargo', The Coen Brothers, the creative force behind the movie, are from Minnesota and obviously know the area very well, but Hollywood executives had little knowledge of Minnesota towns beyond the Twin Cities, and that played a lot into the decision to name the movie.

According to the Star Tribune, one of the reasons behind naming the movie 'Fargo' is that the executives overseeing the movie for the studio didn't believe that Brainerd was an actual place, I'm sure that is a surprise to the 15,000+ people that live there. In fact, The Coen Brothers used 'Brainerd' as the working title of the movie before giving it film its iconic name, funny enough, one of the production companies behind the film is called Working Title Films.

Why Did The Coen Brothers Decide to Name The Movie 'Fargo'?

Another reason given for not naming the movie after the location where the film is actually set, is that it just sounded better, in the DVD commentary for the movie The Coen Brothers mention this, they also talk about it in 1996 interview about the movie.

Joel Coen said, "Fargo seemed a more evocative title than ‘Brainerd’—that’s the only reason." His brother Ethan goes on to say, "It was just that we liked the sound of the word—there’s no hidden meaning."