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Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough)

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Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 11:45:10 AM   
Spaldron


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 What's the big deal with two or three films coming out in the same year that are almost exactly the same? Just noticed this year we've had two indie films about a planet appearing in the sky (Melancholia/Another Earth), last year we had two films about the 9th Legion (Centurion/The Eagle), a few years ago we got two films about Truman Capote within a year of each other etc, etc....

I'm not meaning Hollywood just aping hit films, i,e, the raft of sci-fi movies that came out after Star Wars, all those fantasy movies in the wake of LOTR or the current trend of identkit comic book films. I'm on about studios stealing each others ideas and releasing them within months of the other. There's the famous Deep Impact/Armageddon year of '98 or the famous Dreamworks Animation knock-offs of Pixar movies that happened every other year or so.

And now apparently these at least three Abraham Lincoln films coming out in the next year of so, Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter, the John Wilkes Booth film and Spielberg's long in development biopic with Liam Neeson.

Anybody know why this keeps happening and have you got any other examples I may have missed?

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 11:50:35 AM   
elab49


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I think it's a combination of getting into an identified market (after 1944 eg when there were some really big noir hits the market was pretty saturated for a while) - so one success spews copycats, one studio trying to spoil another release by doing something similar (wasn't that the case with stuff like Deep Impact?), and the possibly rarer sheer coincidence. 

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 11:57:27 AM   
DancingClown


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 I'm pretty sure Turner & Hooch and K-9 came out very closely together. Also Big and Vice Versa. The only other one I can think of is Volcano and Dante's Peak, I think they came out the same year.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 12:00:54 PM   
Harry Tuttle


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 Didn't The Truman Show and Ed TV also get released in the same year. I know the similarity is fairly tenuous but they do kinda have the same subject matter.

< Message edited by Harry Tuttle -- 3/1/2012 12:01:05 PM >

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 12:06:05 PM   
Spaldron


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 Just remembered eXistenZ and The Matrix, same year. I mean is Hollywood just sharing scripts or something?

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 12:26:07 PM   
fuzzy


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Spaldron

Just remembered eXistenZ and The Matrix, same year. I mean is Hollywood just sharing scripts or something?


Think it's a bandwagon thing. Studios know what the other one is doing - so it's just going with what's gonna possibly make money that year. But it's funny when they all happen in the same year - looks kinda desperate. On the body changing theme of '89 - wasn't there a Dudley Moore one too? Like father like son... or sutin.


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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 1:51:46 PM   
great_badir


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quote:

ORIGINAL: fuzzy
On the body changing theme of '89 - wasn't there a Dudley Moore one too? Like father like son... or sutin.


Yarp, and 18 Again with George Burns.

Let's also not forget the Saving Private Ryan and Thin Red Line head-to-head - despite both films being completely different, the media certainly made it out to be a genre battle.

Yeah, it's just using a successful bandwagon is all it is. The Italians were the kings of it in the 60s, 70s and 80s and the Japanese have been masters of using their own films to jump on since the 90s (just think how many Japanese horror films featuring soaking wet young girls [fnarr] with long black hair have been made since Ring).

It's whatever is fashionable with mainstream audiences.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 2:00:04 PM   
Stomper

 

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Two Snow White films coming up this year. They look very different in tone but inevitably comparisons will be made.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 2:06:27 PM   
rich


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 I think it's just a studio thing - they know what the others are doing and get in on the act to compete for box office takings. Example - Big Trouble in Little China was put into production to compete with The Golden Child. It did seem to happen noticable in the early Pixar vs Dreamworks days; A Bugs Life / Antz and Finding Nemo / ... Fischz or something.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Spaldron

Anybody know why this keeps happening and have you got any other examples I may have missed?


You can see a good list of these here:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DuelingMovies

Some of them are very tentative links, but there are quite a few good ones - certainly more than I remember. Try not to read too many though, as TV Tropes will drain away your life. 

< Message edited by rich -- 3/1/2012 2:22:49 PM >

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 3:05:59 PM   
JIm R

 

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 There was a Robin Hood film with Uma Turman made in the same year or there abouts as Costner's version which just got buried as Prince of Theives has the money, the budget, the cast and momentum with it.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 3:14:52 PM   
horribleives

 

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 Didn't Carry On Columbus come out the same year as the Ridley Scott snoozefest?

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 3/1/2012 4:04:31 PM   
adambatman82

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: horribleives

Didn't Carry On Columbus come out the same year as the Ridley Scott snoozefest?


Yep, as did Christopher Columbus:The Discovery. To be fair to them tho, it was the 500th anniversary of 1492.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 4/1/2012 10:30:07 AM   
messiahtime


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 Deep Impact, Armageddon..

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 4/1/2012 11:19:04 AM   
Bloke from Oz

 

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The Prestige/The Illusionist, Murder at 1600/Absolute Power, Top Gun/Iron Eagle, Executive Decision/Air Force One, Independence Day/Mars Attacks!, The Net/Hackers, One True Thing/Stepmom.

Its also interesting to note that The Towering Inferno may not have come about, but we could have had 2 such competing films. 20th Century Fox was going to adapt one novel ("The Tower") and Warner Bros. a second similar novel ("The Glass Inferno"). The 2 studios felt it wiser to make a co-production and avoid box office competition.


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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 4/1/2012 11:21:24 AM   
Whistler


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Observe and Report/Paul Blart: Mall Cop in 2009.

< Message edited by Whistler -- 4/1/2012 11:01:59 PM >

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 4/1/2012 3:56:10 PM   
AngryDude92


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The last broardcast came out round about Blair witch Project.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 4/1/2012 4:30:49 PM   
fuzzy


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 The killing of John Lennon and Chapter 27 came out around the same time, it wasn't on a specific anniversary I think (2006/7) so not sure about that one. And as seen on recent Empire news items, aren't there 2 Jeff Buckley films coming out?

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 4/1/2012 10:47:24 PM   
doubtlesswonder


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 No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits last year.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 4/1/2012 11:01:04 PM   
jackcarter


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Planet of the Apes and 2001 (1968)

well they were both space films with monkeys

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 4/1/2012 11:50:03 PM   
Rebenectomy


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 When Alexander came out in 2004, I'm pretty sure that there was a similar film in the works, that got scrapped as it was felt that there just wasn't the market for two. I think Leonardo DiCaprio was lined up for the lead.

Edit: Yup, there was http://www.contactmusic.com/news-article/dicaprio-alexander-film-on-hold

< Message edited by Rebenectomy -- 4/1/2012 11:51:21 PM >

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 5/1/2012 2:14:24 AM   
Sumintelligentguy


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I think the last two "identical" films where both films were good was Antz - A bug's life; the former being the better of the two.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 5/1/2012 2:49:35 AM   
hozay


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I think Romancing the Stone was an attempt to cash in on the Indiana Jones popularity.It came out in 84,same year as Temple Of Doom.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 5/1/2012 10:13:21 AM   
Tech_Noir

 

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While Titanic was in production a mini-series was rushed onto screens (starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Tim Curry).

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 5/1/2012 10:39:46 AM   
DONOVAN KURTWOOD


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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 5/1/2012 11:08:05 AM   
Spaldron


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 Just remembered The Fighter and Warrior, both fighting sports films about warring brothers and both within a year of each other.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 5/1/2012 1:35:24 PM   
Biggus


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Spaldron

And now apparently these at least three Abraham Lincoln films coming out in the next year of so, Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter, the John Wilkes Booth film and Spielberg's long in development biopic with Liam Neeson.


Daniel Day-Lewis is now signed on the play the lead.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 5/1/2012 1:58:11 PM   
fuzzy


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quote:

ORIGINAL: hozay


I think Romancing the Stone was an attempt to cash in on the Indiana Jones popularity.It came out in 84,same year as Temple Of Doom.


And then we had King Solomon's Mines in '85 - with Richard Chamberlain as Quartermain. Shockingly bad if I remember, with Sharon Stone doing her best Willie Scott impression. Hell, it even had John Rhys Davies.

Nice Av BTW hozay.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 5/1/2012 2:33:34 PM   
grucl

 

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Tombstone and Wyatt Earp came out less than 12 months apart.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 5/1/2012 2:54:00 PM   
grucl

 

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Also:

The Haunting vs The house on Haunted Hill (both 1999)

The Sixth Sense (1999) and The Others (2001) share the same final twist.

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RE: Identical Movies In The Same Year (or close enough) - 5/1/2012 10:07:29 PM   
DazDaMan


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 There were two or three shark-related movies due out last year, but so far only Shark Night 3D (I think) was released theatrically.

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