Braveheart and Rob Roy came out fairly close together. When a reporter asked about it, Mel Gibson said, “It’s either the Collective Unconscious, or corporate espionage.”
Prestige/Illusionist
The release of animated film Madagascar was within weeks of The Wild which was almost an exact conceptual replica.
It could be argued that Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans covered similar ground, not least of which was Gemma Arterton.
Not exactly coinciding in release, but probably too close together for the second to be a copy of the first:
Way back in 1976 we had Two Minute Warning and Black Sunday, both about terrorists threatening a major football arena. TMW came out first, and I remember hearig Robert Shaw*, who starred in Black Sunday on a talk show talking about how they were all hoping the other movie would tank.
*Playing a Mossad agent. How’s that for casting?
Don’t forget XistenZ, Dabid Cronenberg’s VR movie, also released at the same time.
Of the three, The Matrix stands out for many reasons, not least of which in the way it barely nodded at the story line of “is it live or is it Memorex?” which dominated the other two (although I really like Thirteenth Floor, which is based on Daniel F. Galouye’s Simulacron-3, arguably the very first work about VR)
As for comparing Dark City and Matrix, it’s virtually unavoidable:
Another one: the 1966 British teleplay Cathy Come Home raised public awareness of the homelessness problem in Britain, particularly in relation to women and families.
With perfect but unintentional timing, the homeless charity Shelter launched two weeks later, gaining a huge amount of public support off the back of the show.
I remember going to a movie with my dad and seeing previews for Percy Jackson & The Olympians and Clash of the Titans. He turned to me and said, “Are those two different movies?”
They were very different films, but both were based on Grek mythology, and both featured MEDUSA. So of course I had to see both, and purchase the DVDs when they came out.
For my money, Uma Thurman is a better CGI Medusa than Natalia Vodianova, but both are sexier than the one described in Rick Riordan’s book.
No worse than casting a Chilean as one.
Back in 1981, Cinefantastique pointed out how The Howling, Wolfen, and Full Moon High all came out at the same time.
In 1987 The Last Emperor, Bertolucci’s film bio of Pu-Yi came out. at the same time, a Hong Kong film with the same name was released in the US (although is Chinese title translates as Fire Dragon. They were clearly piggybacking on the publicity for Bertolucci’s film). What’s interesting is that the films aren’t really competitors – they complement each other, covering different eras in the life of Pu-Yi. If you watched the Bertolucci film first, then Han Hsiang’s, you got his entire life.
Also, “An American Werewolf in London” in 1981.
There was another Robin Hood film featuring Patrick Bergen that came out at the same time as Kevin Costner’s magnum opus. IMO it was a better film with less scenery chewing, but lost out on publicity and general hype. Also: no Alan Rickman.
Red Planet and Mission to Mars, both of which came out in 2000 and both dealing with (you guessed it) Earth missions to Mars.
Once Upon a Time and Grimm both started on TV at about the same time.
It’s not film, but it’s what came to mind.
quite a number of the recent Academy Award nominees had beards, so those are coincidental release of movies featuring bearded men.
The Star Trek episode The Ultimate Computer aired just under a month before the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and while the plots are different, both feature spaceships controlled by an artificially intelligent computer, which then goes crazy and starts killing. Methinks the Star Trek writers got wind of HAL. Either that or Clarke and Kubrick saw the episode and knocked out 2001 in 28 days.
Olympus Has Fallen features Aaron Eckhart as the President who is taken hostage when terrorists capture the White House. Gerard Butler is called on to save the day. That movie is scheduled for release March 22.
White House Down features Jamie Foxx as the President who is threatened when terrorists capture the White House. Channing Tatum is the Secret Service agent who helps save the day. That movie is scheduled for release in June.
Seriously, when an idea floats around Hollywood, it does appear different studios/writers/producers hear about it through the grapevine and start churning out their takes. Because this does seem to happen a LOT.
Nitpick: Wiki says Tatum plays a U.S. Capitol Police officer.