OK, but you could come to that conclusion just by seeing the posters. The themes of the movies are different - the theme isn’t penguins, not significantly.
And I think that sums it all up. These movies that are so alike are all about the movie poster…and the fast food tie-ins, the action figures. In short, the marketing drives the film, not vice versa. It’s safe to say that neither movie’s theme was created for it’s merits. It’s not as if the authors picked penguins out of their hats and could have just as easy made a film about squirrels, they pitched a “penguin movie” and wrote the script around it.
Just about all these movies are alike for the same reasons. They are rushed out to capitalize on some popular culture sensation or a script is shopped around and the studio losing the bid decides to create it’s own spin on the concept to undercut the other studio.
Exactly. It’s not a coincidence.
Another one I thought of is 1408 and Vacancy.
Does TV movie & theatrical movie count? TNT’s FRANKENSTEIN with Patrick Bergin & Randy Quaid came out about a year before Coppola’s Branaugh-DeNiro cinematic version.
More recently was the TV movie & the theatrical movie about Flight 93.
OK, perhaps the penguin movie is a bad example (not personally convinced of it, but whatever). Would you agree that there exists a possibility for two movies to be perceived as very similar, when in fact that similarity is very superficial, and entirely coincidental?
That was really all I was trying to say - I just happen to have picked a pair of examples upon which we disagree.
If you’ll concede that as far as Hollywood is concerned, the superficial aspect is the most important aspect, if not the only aspect they care about.
Within a 12 month span, if not necessarily a single calendar year:
Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Hamburger Hill.
The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan.
Seven Years In Tibet and Kundun.
Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. First on stage, then in the movies.
There are frequently the cheapie knock-offs which get in the theater first, beating the better-publicized film
Rocketship X-M and Destination Moon
Ape and King Kong (1976)
Sword and the Sorceror and Conan the Barbarian
Carnosaur and Jurassic Park
Harlow and Harlow, both released in 1965. They were biographies of Jean Harlow, one starring Carroll Baker and the other starring Carol Linley.
Confusion abounded.
I’m not sure I’d put it quite as strongly as that, but I see your point.
Thought I’d contribute my own observation I made several years ago: Air Force One and Turbulence (both 1997).
The only similarity is that they both occur in a hotel/motel room.
Otherwise, 1408 is a supernatural/psychological thriller in which the lead character experiences things that happen either as a result of ghosts or as a result of his own mind turning on him.
Vacancy is a violent suspense/torture-porn film about a couple being terrorized by other human beings in their motel room.
I disagree that this is of little importance. Hollywood is a small place, and word gets around very early as to what the “other guy” is up to. And if you toss together a script and some actors and pay a director enough, you can very easily get a copycat film out between 3-9 months after the “other guy’s” film. Sure, it probably won’t be as good, but so what? Free advertising. Plus, the exec who greenlighted it can’t be held accountable. After all, he was doing what those brilliant buys at “other guy’s studio” were doing, and you know what big-name actors they had!
Both truly awful, both based off a short-lived trend, and both from 1990.
I just wanted to point out that penguins ain’t natural.
It’s in the bible. Noah didn’t take no penguins on the ark, ergo, penguins ain’t natural.
Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone knows that Pen-goo-ins is prac-ti-cullly chickens.
These strike me as the strongest matches, as well as the 2004 development of two Alexander the Great films: Alexander, by Oliver Stone, and the halted Baz Luhrmann project.I mean, while these figures can be fascinating film subjects, isn’t it a mind-boggling coincidence that two people decided to make films on the same person in the same year? To me, two films about the same contemporary happenings (Vietnam War) or the same type of animal (penguins) aren’t that unexpected, but two films about the same seemingly-random historical figure are.