Cate Blanchett's Cannes Film 'Rumours' Named After Fleetwood Mac Album, Directors Confirm

The directors of the Cate Blanchett-starring Rumours, one of the movies that premiered this week at the Cannes Film Festival, confirmed at a press conference Sunday that the film is named after the classic Fleetwood Mac album.

Rumours — described as "dark comedy" about a group of G7 world leaders who get stranded in the woods, leading to debauch situations, Variety reports — doesn't share much in common with the legendary band, but co-director Galen Johnson found similarities between the film's plot and the story behind the album.

"Rumours the album was famously creatively fraught and everyone was sleeping with each other, so it made sense to us," Galen Johnson continued. "No one questioned it. We thought people, producers and financiers, would be like, 'Why Rumours?' But no one ever questioned it, so it just made the title."

"I did confirm something with Galen last night, and it's weird that it never came up in rehearsal, which is: 'Why the hell is this movie called Rumours?'" Blanchett added at the press conference. "And my husband had said, 'Is that after the Fleetwood Mac album?' And you said, 'Yes it was.'"

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Despite the happenstance parallels between the film and the album, Rumours almost had a completely different title. According to Johnson, the filmmakers were looking at a "list of 10 best album names and Rumours was on there and we liked that name."

It's unclear which albums list the directors were scanning, but Rolling Stone did place Rumours at Number 7 on our 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, making it plausible that our Top 10 was the catalyst for the movie title. If that's the case, other candidates included Nevermind, Purple Rain (already taken), Blood on the Tracks, What's Going On, and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.