FAQ for
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) More at IMDbPro »

From IMDb's trivia section for this movie:

According to Andrew Dominik, Brad Pitt had it put in his contract that the name of the movie was not to be changed.

It's also the original title of the book upon which the film is based, and it's in keeping with the time the film is set.

At first glance, the decision to cast Sam Shepard as a 38-year-old seems bizarre. However, the movie was based on a novel by Ron Hansen. Andrew Dominik used the following passage from the novel to make his casting decision for Frank:

"Frank was 38 years old, but looked a homely 50. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall at a time when such height was above average, and weighed about 150 pounds. He had ears nearly the size of his hands, and a very large, significant nose that seemed to hook and clamp his light-brown mustache. His chin jutted. His jaw muscles bulged. His mouth was as straight and grim as a hatchet mark. And he'd ground down his teeth in his sleep until they all were as square as molars. He was a stern and very constrained man. He could have been a magistrate; an evangelist; a banker who farmed on weekends. Rectitude and resolution influenced his face and comportment. Scorn and even malevolence could be read in his green eyes."

According to Dominik, Shepard fitted Frank's description in this passage almost to the word.

No studio would take the film because they believed that it wouldn't make any money. Consequently, the film went through many stages of editing and test screenings.