Why do similar movies come out at the same time?

From the early days of cinema, there have been twinsies – two movies released around the same time that was basically about the same thing.

You’re sitting there in the cinema, scratching your head, scrunching up your face and asking, “Haven’t I already deja-ed this vu?”.

In 1912, there were two silent features adapted from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, one a British production, the other an American one, released four months apart, and since then, it’s a trend with no end.

One of the reasons is that there really are just so many scripts and in-development productions going around in Hollywood that even for every pair of similar films that makes it to release, there are probably five other scripts in the same vein that were killed.

Or perhaps someone at one studio has caught wind of an upcoming project, liked the concept and quickly commissioned something similar to rush out before their competitor.

Or films are timed to an occasion, and that’s how we ended up with two Christopher Columbus dramas in 1992, because it was the 500th anniversary of the explorer’s voyage to America. And the spate of disaster epics just before the new millennium – clearly we were all feeling a little anxious.

It’s also an industry that reacts to existing trends, so whatever might have sparked inspiration for one filmmaker might do the same for another. You can’t copyright an idea, the creativity is in the execution.

There are also so many different films released every year, that we remember the coincidences (or not) particularly well. Still, they make for a great double-feature movie night.

INDEPENDENCE DAY VS MARS ATTACKS (1996)

Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks was scheduled to be released earlier but Independence Day beat it to the punch by mere months. Both films include an extra-terrestrial invasion and an ensemble of characters (including a rural family), but the tones are wildly different. Mars Attacks was a goofy pastiche of 1950s alien movies and Independence Day is an earnest action thriller about the greatness of America.

DEEP IMPACT VS ARMAGEDDON (1998)

Perhaps Hollywood was just trying to get ahead of Nostradmus’s prediction that terror would rain from the sky in 1999, by ensuring healthy ticket sales should the world end a year later. How else to explain Deep Impact (an 11km-wide comet is headed for Earth) and Armageddon (an asteroid the size of Texas is Earth-bound) being released within two months of each other.

NO STRINGS ATTACHED VS FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS (2011)

You’d be forgiven for thinking this is the exact same movie – if you weren’t wearing your glasses, you could mistake all four of its leads (Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman) and (Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis) for each other. Released within six months of each other, they’re both about good friends who embark on an obligation-free sexual relationship only to really fall for each other. Shocker.

NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994) VS KALIFORNIA (1993)

Juliette Lewis must have loved playing a character inspired by teen spree killer Caril Ann Fugate that she did it twice – first in Kalifornia opposite Brad Pitt, and then again in Natural Born Killers with Woody Harrelson. Both films are about a violent road trip across America, and for extra homework, don’t forget about the 1973 Martin Sheen-starring Badlands.

ANTZ VS A BUG’S LIFE (1998)

Dreamworks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg was a former Disney guy who left on bad terms, so there’s probably something in that when you consider his team put Antz directly up against A Bug’s Life, which Pixar made for Disney, and got it into cinemas two months before his rival. Two animated films about anthropomorphic bugs at the same time, that’s some ego-play at work.

CHASING LIBERTY VS FIRST DAUGHTER (2004)

When Bill Clinton became the US president in 1993, Chelsea Clinton was 12 years old and it was the first time there had been a kid in the White House since Jimmy Carter’s tenure. More significantly, it was the age of MTV and voracious media coverage, and everyone wanted to know what Chelsea was doing. So it’s not surprising Hollywood cooked up these two teen flicks about imaginary first daughters (one with Katie Holmes, the other with Mandy Moore), which were in development at the tail end of the Clinton reign, but released during the era of the Bush twins.

THE ILLUSIONIST VS THE PRESTIGE (2006)

One had Christian Bale (20-year-old spoiler alert) pulling double duty as secret twins, David Bowie as Nikola Tesla, and Christopher Nolan’s penchant for explaining exactly how magic tricks work, and the other had Edward Norton as a Viennese illusionist in love with a woman and has a touch of magical realism. Both are set at the end of the 19th century, which is when illusionist performers were at their peak.

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN VS WHITE HOUSE DOWN (2013)

Another twin pair that you thought were the same movie about a terror attack on the White House, and the Secret Service agent or wannabe Secret Service agent who saves the day – even their titles are just variations of the same naming theme, goodness gracious. The craziest thing that Olympus Has Fallen did, other than spawning a franchise, is that it had Morgan Freeman on the call sheet and didn’t cast him as the president. Silly.

THE GREAT ESCAPER VS THE LAST RIFLEMAN (2023)

Bernard Jordan was a British Navy veteran who, in 2014, snuck out of his nursing home and took himself to France to attend the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings. What’s kind of nuts is that The Last Rifleman with Pierce Brosnan and inspired by Jordan’s story, had been announced in 2020, and a year later, The Great Escaper, starring Michael Caine, declared itself too. But the latter had the life rights to Jordan’s story, so it figured it was on better footing. It also came out a few weeks before the Brosnan picture.

VOLCANO VS DANTE’S PEAK (1997)

See above re 1990s disaster movies tapping into the collective anxiety about what the new millennium might bring (the possibility of Y2K was first flagged in 1993), and if Deep Impact and Armageddon were worried about threats from above, Volcano and Dante’s Peak looked to what has beneath our feet. Volcano had Tommy Lee Jones as an authoritative director of emergency management while Pierce Brosnan fought the day as a volcanologist.

NYAD (2023) VS YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA (2024)

Young Woman and the Sea, a true story about Trudy Ederle, the first woman to successfully swim across the English Channel, and starring Daisy Ridley had been in development for about a decade before it was finally birthed, which allowed Nyad, a biopic about Diana Nyad, who at the age of 64 swam across the Florida Straits, to come out a year earlier. Women who swim long distances, we love to see it.

ELVIS (2022) VS PRISCILLA (2023)

These two are more like companion pieces, and they couldn’t be more different in style. Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis film is a frenetic whirlwind biopic with Austin Butler in the title role while Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla is a dreamier, softer story which focused on the The King’s young wife. Weirdly, the Elvises in both films, Butler and Jacob Elordi, are both ex-boyfriends of Kaia Gerber. Go figure.

OBSERVE AND REPORT VS PAUL BLART: MALL COP (2009)

Neither of these so-called comedies are particularly funny, but we’ll take Seth Rogen over Kevin James any day. Both these movies are about shopping centre security guards – one a mentally unstable vigilante, another a bumbling fool who becomes the accidental hero during a heist. It’s really strange that these happened at the same time – maybe there was an appetite to celebrate working class characters during the GFC? As good a theory as any.