Does the word "Shawshank" make you giggle? Oh, well then you would have had an all-out laughing fit if the movie had been given the exact same title as the short story on which it was based.

The film was adapted from Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. Why ever would they change that title?

Yeah, so one of the weirdest and most convoluted titles ever. If you ask us, the producers made a wise decision to drop the first part and go with the simpler, relatively more elegant The Shawshank Redemption. Regardless, the word "redemption" is key here. If this were just your typical man-goes-to-jail/man-escapes-from-jail story, there would be no growth, no evolution, no reason to care about his journey. It's his redemption that's the juicy bit.