So what's the deal with two or more movies coming out in the same year that have essentially the same premise. And I am not talking about the straight-to-DVD copycats with similar titles, like Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies and Hansel and Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft. I mean theatrical features produced by the top studios. I suppose it's not a new concept, but it seems to be more popular this year and last. To celebrate the current lack of originality in Hollywood, which is wrought with sequels, reboots, and, parodies, I thought I would honor some of the most original unoriginal ideas.
The oldest pair that comes to mind is A Bug's Life and Antz. Do I really have to explain what they're about? Both are animated. One represents America's premier animation studio (Pixar) in the early stages of its eventual empire, and the other...has Sylvester Stallone. One is entertaining for children and adults of all ages, and the other...has Sylvester Stallone.
A year or two ago there we saw No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits. And when I say 'we saw', what I mean is, 'maybe some people saw it, but I wasn't one of them'. Nevertheless they are both about friends having sex with each other and, I assume, falling in love. They both feature actresses who were much better in Black Swan. And they both feature leading men who should stop stepping in front of cameras: Justin Timberlake and Ashton Kutcher.
A year before that, Kutcher also gave us Killers, which is the age old romantic comedy about a seemingly normal guy who is actually a secret agent, and the dumb blonde who follows him around and falls in love with him. It's a carbon copy of the Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz masterpiece, Knight and Day.
There was that period where all we wanted to see was grim, post-apocalyptic movies where the cause of the end of the world is unknown, but everything is cold, dead, and brownish-colored. Now let me just point out that all other pairs of movies in this post came out in the same year. Which is my point. And I say that, because technically The Road and The Book of Eli were released in two different years, but it was only by a couple months, so I'm still including. And yes, you can argue that they are completely different, and original movies. To which I reply: Eh, not really.
The Dark Knight showed us that not all superhero movies have to be Superhero Movies. So in one year we got a pair of films about guys who are tired of the crime around them, and so they dress up in shitty outfits and try to take down mobsters. Those films are Kick-Ass and Super.
Speaking of Christopher Nolan, The Prestige was an awesome mind-bending movie with clones and magic and David Bowie. The Illusionist was about...well, illusions, I guess.
Which brings me to 2012. It's not like a studio doesn't know that another studio is doing the same thing. So...is it a race? Is it a competition? I haven't seen Paranorman or Frankenweenie, but they both appear to be reimagined horror stories with Tim Burton-style animation, for kids. And even their covers are too similar to care if either of them are any good. Also last year we got two different interpretations of Honest Abe, one Oscar-bait biopic starring Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) and the other a what-if scenario in which the Confederates are actually vampires (the aptly titles Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). Finally, we were treated to not one, but two dramatized live-action reinterpretations of the Snow White fairy tale: Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman.
This year seems to be continuing with the fairy tales, as we have already gotten Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and Jack the Giant Slayer. Okay, so maybe these movies are not quite about the exact same thing. It just seems like in the long run they are using similar source material to accomplish the same things, and are unsuccessful in both cases. Later on this year we will get two competing movies featuring A-list actors (Tom Cruise again, and Will Smith) returning to Earth after some futuristic war forced humanity to abandon it, in After Earth and Oblivion. And we'll also get two movies with the EXACT same plot -- Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down -- which, if the titles aren't clear enough, are both about terrorists taking over the White House.
Those are the only ones I bothered to come up with. If you can think of more, feel free to point them out in the comments. One could also make the same argument with TV shows. Just watch this video:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/48e76dcdab/i-can-t-believe-these-are-all-tv-shows
UPDATE:
Let's Add:
The Movie 43 and Inappropriate Comedy
Scary Movie 5 and A Haunted House
Red Planet and Mission to Mars
Colombiana and Haywire
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