Different titles

During development, Kubrick and Clarke jokingly referred to their cosmic epic as How the Solar System Was Won, a parody of the 1962 Western blockbuster.

Working titles included Project: Space, Across the Sea of Stars, Farewell to Earth and Jupiter Window.

MGM even issued a 1965 press release announcing the movie as Journey Beyond the Stars.

Clarke later confirmed in The Lost Worlds of 2001 that Kubrick alone chose the final title, calling it “an homage to Homer,” with the number 2001 serving as a marker of a new millennium and a symbolic leap for mankind.