You can’t be fooled by these if you’re paying the slightest bit of attention. The name is usually different (to avoid trademark issues) and the covers don’t look anything like the images you see in all the advertising for the real thing.
I never said anything about the *quality *of Cruise films :).
28 Days and 28 Days Later…nothing to do with each other.
Jurassic Pork. Totally different plot, and without those annoying, needy children.
On the book front, I know plenty of people who in Junior High felt duped by either My Side of the Mountain or Other Side of the Mountain, depending on what sort of story you were into.
I thought Disney trademarked all their films as “Disney’s <generic name>”.
Beats the alternative.
Here’s a happy little thread on Asylum.
nm
Well, its not a second Holocaust or anything, but I’d say basing your business model completely on tricking people into buying something they don’t want is, in fact, at least a little bit evil.
Oh and just to add Schindler’s Fist is probably not the movie you are supposed to watch for your World History class.
I used to refer to these as ‘fooling grandma is our business plan’ movies. They’d put stacks of these movies near the checkout counter at the local CVS/Walgreens/Whatever and grandma would see them and think “ooh! Alladin, my grandson said he liked that movie!” and gets a copy not realizing she just got little Billy a pile of poorly animated crap.
These days I wonder what their business plan is? Get as many hits on Netflix as possible to sell ads?
I know, I can’t be mad at them - it’s sort of adorable.
Right? I was totally confused by this thread. I was like, “Why can’t people read the description or the credits?” Who is being taken in by this? I can see maybe once hurriedly picking up the wrong thing, but if this happens to you on separate occasions, then, I dunno, you don’t get to complain.
Yeah, one stars the guy from E.T. and the other is the movie I was looking for.
No, you can’t necessarily get trademark rights in just the title of a work. And, please forget the phrase “trademark it,” because it’s misleading.
As for the phenomenon described by the OP, it’s called “mockbusters,” and I brought it up myself in this thread: Waitaminit, it’s a Mockbuster! Curse you, Asylum, you fooled me again!
Here is a kiddie-matinee grade movie inexplicably titled “H.G. Well’s The Shape of Things to Come”, despite having absolutely nothing to do with the orginal movie by that title or anything Wells ever wrote.
The ones based off Hollywood action blockbusters always made me think “Let’s fool Grandma into thinking this is Transformers”.
The poorly animated $2 Disney knock-offs based on public domain properties sold at Walmart and Big Lots always made me sadly think “We can’t afford real Pocahontas but maybe our five year old can’t tell the difference anyway”.
You wanna see real craptacularity, look up “Ratatoing” on YouTube.
Other Pixar ripoffs include What’s Up: Balloon To The Rescue, Little Cars 1 and 2, and An Ant’s Life.
I am quite surprised at the posts in this thread assuming that people who rent the knockoffs are stupid or something.
Not everyone is 100% well informed about movie titles, dates, studios and all that. If fact, very few people are. And cover art? You’ve got to be kidding me. I know a lot about movies and I can’t tell the cover art of the various Battle LA/Transformers, etc. knockoffs/real thing apart.
One thing to keep in mind is that there a lot of people out there who assume that no one is trying to rip them off. If Redbox is carrying a Puss in Boots movie, it has to be the one they heard about. My mother is one of these people. She is also not stupid in the least. It’s just a world view she has.
I suppose it’s less stupid and more unwise to buy/rent a film without knowing enough about it to be able to avoid being tricked, as well as being wise enough to recognize there is a chance things might not be what they seem. There are plenty of non-rip-off films that have the same or similar titles, anyway.