# Have two movies ever been made from the exact same script? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 19, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103 "2013-04-19T04:05:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/1 "2013-04-19T04:05:22Z")
The first time I read a movie script, I was surprised by how little detail is provided by the scriptwriter, and how many of the artistic decisions made in creating a movie are made by people other than the creator of the story. I guess I expected it to be much more like a novel. It made me wonder - have there ever been two movies made from the exact same script, but by different directors, etc.? It would be really interesting to see how much they differ. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_Urquhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@Gordon\_Urquhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_Urquhart)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/2 "2013-04-19T04:49:45Z")
\*Psycho \*(1998) was a shot-for-shot remake of \*Psycho \*(1960); the remake credits Robert Bloch, the writer of the original novel (who was also credited for the 1960 version) and Joseph Stefano, the writer of the 1960 screenplay, for its screenplay. I’ve never understood why Gus Van Sant, who’s capable of so much more, decided to (quite literally) remake the original; Van Sant is capable of directing really good movies – not just literal remakes. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/3 "2013-04-19T04:53:53Z")
There was a remake of _Psycho_ several years ago (IMDb says 1998) that I heard was intended to be a shot-for-shot recreation of the original. Never saw it, so I can’t say if they held to that standard. And most of what I’ve heard about it is that it wasn’t very good. If you’re willing to consider the small screen, there was a British TV show called _Coupling_ that was remade in the U.S. The first episode (and probably more) used the same script as the original.[sup]\*[/sup] The interesting thing to me was to see how the actors played it. The original Jane had a certain direct obliviousness. She’s say the wrong thing so instantly that there just seemed like there was no point in even questioning it. The new Jane would stop and think about what she’d been told, and then, of course, give the same answer. It was interesting how that changed the character. Not for the better, however. The remake only lasted a few episodes. - I think this was done with _The Office_, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/4 "2013-04-19T04:58:10Z")
There have been several Shakespeare plays that have been made into more than one film version. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/5 "2013-04-19T05:07:29Z")
I dunno, that Sam Taylor guy keeps messing with things… ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/6 "2013-04-19T05:12:13Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > It would be really interesting to see how much they differ. I have often thought the same thing. If you could give them a script from a movie that wasn’t well known and that they had never seen, so they’d go in cold, and that they had to adhere to the script and dialogue exactly to get the closest match possible, and if it was from an earlier era, like the 70s, when the sensibilities of filmmaking are so different to today, it would be fascinating to see what theyc ome up with. A similar experiment would be to give multiple directors a short film script, dialogue only, and let them go and make whatever movie in whatever setting they wanted from it. ---
**Author:** ![irritant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@irritant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irritant)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/7 "2013-04-19T08:12:05Z")
> [@Gordon\_Urquhart](#): > > I’ve never understood why Gus Van Sant, who’s capable of so much more, decided to (quite literally) remake the original; Van Sant is capable of directing really good movies – not just literal remakes. Well, the literalness is the key. You know how Warhol made art out of doing the same thing over and over again, making endless numbers of silk screened images of celebrities with different colored backgrounds, commenting on the very act of mass-production? Well, Van Sant is a big Warhol fan: think of his _Psycho_ as an attempt to do something similar, to see if such a literal adaptation could be done. It couldn’t. Movies have moving parts that are impossible to replicate (Van Sant: “Even with the movie to look at, I couldn’t get certain shots the way Hitchcock did.”) It’s a failure, sure, unwatchable even, but it was a legitimate attempt at art instead of hackwork. I personally think that it would be more artistically interesting to just take the original film and then project it with candy-colored tints. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/8 "2013-04-19T08:16:09Z")
Not quite the same thing, but once upon a time many films were shot twice, once in English, and once in Spanish for distribution in Mexico. The English version was shot during the day, and the Spanish version done at night on the same sets. The Bela Lugosi version of Dracula was done this way. Some have said the Spanish version was superior. ---
**Author:** ![Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stark_Raven_Mad)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/10 "2013-04-19T08:25:28Z")
The [two](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/) [versions](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808279/) of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games are nearly identical - almost shot-for-shot and word-for-word. I think his justification for the English remake was that his reason for making the (first) German one was as a critique of US cinema or something, so making it in English was his original intention anyway. ---
**Author:** ![stui\_magpie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stui_magpie/32/11010_2.png) [@stui\_magpie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stui_magpie)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/11 "2013-04-19T09:51:10Z")
All of the Rambo movies? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/12 "2013-04-19T11:46:47Z")
There was a _Saturday Night Live_ sketch soon after the Gus Van Sant remake of _Psycho_ about someone making a shot-for-shot remake of the movie _Turner and Hooch_, the point being that a shot-for-shot remake is a pretty ridiculous notion. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/13 "2013-04-19T12:00:25Z")
Didn’t Hitchcock himself do this with one of his early movies? ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/14 "2013-04-19T12:05:25Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Not quite the same thing, but once upon a time many films were shot twice, once in English, and once in Spanish for distribution in Mexico. The English version was shot during the day, and the Spanish version done at night on the same sets. The Bela Lugosi version of Dracula was done this way. Some have said the Spanish version was superior. The Spanish version is superior in some ways, but they use different actors. I’ve seen it with a commentary track, which says that the actor playing Dracula saw the rushes from the earlier-in-the-day Lugosi filmning and was supposed to mimic him, but basically failed. So while some of the cutting and composition are better, the acting is not. I don’t know whether this counts as “same script” since it’s in Spanish. Better example is that Laurel and Hardy made several of their films (early 1930s) in both English and Spanish. They were famous silent stars (where the same film could be used with different language cards, of course) so couldn’t be replaced. They didn’t know Spanish but learned (or had cue cards) phonetically. These look pretty much the same, but of course they were shot simultaneously with same directors etc. I don’t know of any other remake that uses the same script. However, I think it’s clear that there’s more to a film than the script. The script of CASABLANCA, for instance, seems dreadful dull. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/15 "2013-04-19T12:38:42Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Didn’t Hitchcock himself do this with one of his early movies? **The Man Who Knew Too Much** (1934 & 1956). Had the same writers credited, but there were some changes to the story, mostly in the locations and the addition of a song (“Que Sera Sera,” which won and Oscar and became Doris Day’s theme song). Similarly, **The Vanishing** was a film by Dutch director George Sluicer. He remade it a few years later with an American version, which everyone agrees is terrible, but there was a different scriptwriter for that version (though it came from the same source material). ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/16 "2013-04-19T12:58:13Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I think this was done with _The Office_, as well. IIRC, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have required every version of _The Office_ to use the same script (or a translation thereof) for its first episode. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/17 "2013-04-19T13:28:38Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Better example is that Laurel and Hardy made several of their films (early 1930s) in both English and Spanish. They were famous silent stars (where the same film could be used with different language cards, of course) so couldn’t be replaced. They didn’t know Spanish but learned (or had cue cards) phonetically. These look pretty much the same, but of course they were shot simultaneously with same directors etc. Not just in Spanish, either. The introduction to this clip says they did all of the dialogue themselves, without resorting to dubbing by other actors: https://www.youtube.com/embed/muHixa82-tk?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque The first time I was aware I had seen two movies made from exactly the same script was this one: > **[The Dawn Patrol (1930 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_Patrol_(1930_film))** > > The Dawn Patrol is a 1930 American pre-Code World War I film starring Richard Barthelmess and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. It was directed by Howard Hawks, a former World War I flight instructor, who even flew in the film as a German pilot in an uncredited role. The Dawn Patrol won the Academy Award for Best Story for John Monk Saunders, an American writer said to have been haunted by his inability to get into combat as a flyer with the U.S. Air Service. It was subsequently remade in 1938 with the sa... > **[The Dawn Patrol (1938 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_Patrol_(1938_film))** > > The Dawn Patrol is a 1938 American war film, a remake of the pre-Code 1930 film of the same title. Both were based on the short story "The Flight Commander" by John Monk Saunders, an American writer said to have been haunted by his inability to get into combat as a flyer with the U.S. Air Service. > The film, directed by Edmund Goulding, stars Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and David Niven as Royal Flying Corps fighter pilots in World War I. Of the several films that Flynn and Rathbone appeared in ... Sometimes they’re made with different titles, but are almost identical shot-for-shot: > **[Bedtime story (disambiguation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedtime_Story_(film))** > > A bedtime story is a popular form of storytelling. > Bedtime story or Bedtime stories may also refer to: > **[Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Rotten_Scoundrels_(film))** > > Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Frank Oz and produced by Bernard Williams. It is a remake of the 1964 film Bedtime Story, whose co-writers Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning received screen credit for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, along with writer Dale Launer. Set on the French Riviera, the film stars Steve Martin and Michael Caine as two con men competing to swindle a wealthy tourist (Glenne Headly) out of $50,000. > Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was first released in th... The main difference between the latter two was that the first was actually kind of sweet (it had a romantic ending), while the second heavily featured the Jerk Humor of Steve Martin (and the ending was, shall we say, somewhat different). ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/18 "2013-04-19T13:31:50Z")
> [@Flywheel](#): > > IIRC, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have required every version of _The Office_ to use the same script (or a translation thereof) for its first episode. The first episode of the US adaption of Shameless followed the UK version fairly closely. I can’t remember if it was exact, though. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/19 "2013-04-19T13:37:27Z")
Quite funny: When KITN (Channel 29 in Minneapolis/St Paul) first came on the air in the '80s, it ran _ **Bedtime Story** _ with the promo “Marlin Brando and David Niven are dirty, rotten scoundrels.” The night it aired, the station-break graphic was for _ **Dirty Rotten Scoundrels** _; it took them 45 minutes before someone in the studio realized they were watching a different movie and changed the graphic. A real **D’oh!** moment. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/20 "2013-04-19T13:44:33Z")
WTF is it with url’s and parentheses?!? :mad: > **[The Dawn Patrol (1930 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_Patrol_(1930_film))** > > The Dawn Patrol is a 1930 American pre-Code World War I film starring Richard Barthelmess and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. It was directed by Howard Hawks, a former World War I flight instructor, who even flew in the film as a German pilot in an uncredited role. The Dawn Patrol won the Academy Award for Best Story for John Monk Saunders, an American writer said to have been haunted by his inability to get into combat as a flyer with the U.S. Air Service. It was subsequently remade in 1938 with the sa... > **[The Dawn Patrol (1938 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_Patrol_(1938_film))** > > The Dawn Patrol is a 1938 American war film, a remake of the pre-Code 1930 film of the same name. Both were based on the short story "The Flight Commander" by John Monk Saunders, an American writer said to have been haunted by his inability to get into combat as a flyer with the U.S. Air Service. > The film, directed by Edmund Goulding, stars Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and David Niven as Royal Flying Corps fighter pilots in World War I. Of the several films that Flynn and Rathbone appeared in tog... > **[Bedtime story (disambiguation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedtime_Story_(film))** > > A bedtime story is a popular form of storytelling. > Bedtime story or Bedtime stories may also refer to: > **[Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Rotten_Scoundrels_(film))** > > Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Frank Oz and starring Steve Martin, Michael Caine and Glenne Headly. The screenplay was written by Dale Launer, Stanley Shapiro, and Paul Henning. It is a remake of the 1964 Marlon Brando/David Niven film Bedtime Story, also written by Shapiro and Henning, and was later remade in 2019 as The Hustle, starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. > The film tells the story of two con men competing to swindle an heiress out of $50,000. C... ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103/21 "2013-04-19T14:40:12Z")
Samuel Beckett’s only film, titled _Film_, was produced in 1964 and remade in 1979 from the same screenplay. (It contains one line of dialogue: “sssh!”) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-two-movies-ever-been-made-from-the-exact-same-script/656103.md?page=2)