I’ve been perplexed recently by the tendency of the movie industry to release movies in pairs. By that I mean frequently there are two movies released within a couple months of each other with the same level of publicity and very similar subject matter. For example, Gamer, a story about people allowing (or being forced) other people to control their bodies, was released September 4, 2009. On September 25, the movie Surrogates, about people controlling robots in a similar manner, was released. The actual storyline was very different in this case, but the similarities of concept were striking.
There are other examples of this tendency, and I hope to document the pairs I notice as I remember or as I notice them, but I’ve forgotten them all now.
Without having insider knowledge of how these ideas turn into movies, I’m left to guess how these movies come to be. I think someone comes up with an idea for a movie and begins to pitch the idea to people that could make the movie happen. He gets shot down at first by a group that steals the basic idea and makes their own version. In the example above, the basic concept was the vicarious control of another.
It is interesting to see how the same basic concept can be developed into such different stories so easily.
What do you think? Do you know of any similar movie pairs?