This weekend ascertain the going of The Legend of Hercules — and then laterthis twelvemonth , we ’ll see a second Hercules flick . This seems to chance a deal : everybody gets the same bright thought at the same meter , and competing films arerushed into output . Here are a ton of cases where weirdly similar film didbattle .
This lean focuses on skill fiction and fantasyfilms , natch , so feel devoid to name your preferred non - genre “ duelingmovies ” below . ( let in Olympus HasFallen / White House Down or TopGun / Iron Eagle . )
Ninja / Ninja Assassin
The title middling much say it all — especiallysince a ninja is essentially a form of assassinator , making the second moving picture aredundantly describe copy of the second . Ninja came about a calendar month before NinjaAssassin , but it went direct to TV and could n’t compete with NinjaAssassin , which actually came out in theaters .
Underworld : Evolution / Ultraviolet
Even though Ultraviolet terminate up minimise itsvampiric roots , that does n’t switch the fact that it ’s about a badassvampire - chick waging warfare against an entity that is inherently at odds with herpeople . Replace the Archministry with wolfman , strip off some of thefuturistic elements , and you have Underworld : Evolution . That ’s plausibly whyScreen Gems ( which distributed both movies ) background the lamia stuff duringthe calendar month and a half between moving-picture show releases .
The League ofExtraordinary Gentlemen / Van Helsing
Though the flick were released almost a yearapart , they were both all about crossing classic literary plant with eachother . The League brings together the likes of Allan Quartermain , Captain Nemo , Mina Harker , Rodney Skiner , Dr. Jekyll , Dorian Gray , James Moriarty and othersin a morsel of a messy compounding . Van Helsing is a little thinner when it comesto heroes , but it does bring together Dracula , werewolves , and Frankenstein’smonster as enemies .
Robin Hood / Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves
These two moving-picture show came down to budget . While thefirst Robin Hood follow out a calendar month earlier and sport Uma Thurman , it wentstraight to TV when it came stateside — but that determination was made to avoidfurther competition . Prince of Thieves , which begin Kevin Costner ( who at thetime was actually someone citizenry wanted to see ) and had a much bombastic budget , did much good .
A Bug ’s Life / Antz
This wasthe first clock time Pixar and Dreamworks square off , but it was n’t the last . Bothmovies did well , but A hemipteran ’s biography wasmarketed well and brought in mode more money . Antz suffered from not come up the right line , as it was too matureto hook Thomas Kyd away from A Bug ’s living . Kidsmay have been shocked that Antz had apretty intense state of war scene , and include someone saying the word “ Damn . ”
Finding Nemo / Shark Tale
The secondtime Pixar and Dreamworks went at it , you ’d think that the later would winsince their motion-picture show fetch together a crazy cast for an animize flick . Not thatNemo was take with nobodies , but itwas laborious to compete with Will Smith , Jack Black , Robert De Niro , and AngelinaJolie in 2004 . Dreamworks ’ trouble came down to the story , because a fathersearching for his drop son resonated far better than the story of a sharkwho does n’t want to kill . After all , Nemo had that factor too — and thosesharks had Australian accents .
Titan A.E./Treasure Planet
Thesemovies have the biggest fourth dimension - gap between them , but the 2d Disney / Bluthface - off ( after Oliver and Companyand All Dogs Go to Heaven ) has toomany similarity to ignore . They ’re basically the same movie , even . Both stara tyke with pa issues living in a post - Earth , interstellar community where aspace ocean trip with weird alien people looks to alter their spirit . Each bunch hasa potent betrayal which threatens to screw everything up , but the villains allredeem themselves at the last minute with a “ take my deal ” second . Oh , and bothmain characters were also the only people who could read a particular map to somegiant , fake - satellite macguffin . Both films tanked in theaters , but have sincebeen redeemed after the fact . Image viaBlip . TV .
worthless Me / Megamind
SteveCarell had a decent confidential information on Will Ferrell when it came to releases , but thatwasn’t the only rationality the former comedy about an evil - genius - turn - goodoutperformed the latter . It came down to the three fiddling girls Gru adopts , infusing the pic with a dose of adorableness and heart that Megamind lack .
Paranorman / HotelTransylvania / Frankenweenie
These three children ’s animated repulsion filmsdealt with young kids in supernatural situations . All three amount out within amonth of each other and fatigued each other . Somehow only Adam Sandler ’s Hotel Transylvania succeededcommercially , even though the other two were better received by critic .
This is the End / TheWorld ’s remainder
In classic United States - vs.-UnitedKingdom fashion , thesetwo end - of - the - Earth comedies duked it out over the summer . But when SethRogen ’s crew squared off against Simon Pegg ’s , the substantial winner was theaudience . Both picture show were hilarious , but Rogen ’s film did make a mode largeramount of money stateside .
Deep Impact / Armageddon
The Book of Revelation came double in 1998 — both timescourtesy of a comet . Deep Impact wasconsidered the better movie , sporting the ilk of Morgan Freeman , RobertDuvall , and Elijah Wood , but Armageddonmade more money . It also had a enceinte comet . 7 miles is large enough to doconsiderable wrong to the Earth , but Armageddon threw out one the size of Texas . They might aswell have had the Earth facing an impact with Jupiter .
Dante ’s Peak / Volcano
The late ’ 90s were a bad time for satellite Earth , because the year before two comets threaten things , two volcanos decimatedcontinental Americain these movies . Dante ’s Peak didmake an effort to be scientifically exact though , and that earned it moremoney . Despite this , Volcano getsmore attention on cable these days .
The Matrix / eXistenZ / TheThirteenth Floor
In 1999 , there were famously three movies that featuredcomputer - generated worlds and a protagonist who questions the meaning ofreality . David Cronenberg ’s eXistenZhas gone on to be a furor classic , with its unusual biomechanical imagery andbone - gun . The Thirteenth Floor justsort of sank without trace . But TheMatrix became one of the year ’s biggest pic and spawned a trilogy , hands down deliver the goods this face-off .
Babe / Gordy
Amazingly , there were two movies about a talkingpig in 1995 — Babe , of course , boast a pig instruct to herd sheep in atouching level that included James Cromwell ’s tattle . Gordy was a criticallypanned moving-picture show whose advertising featured a pig wear sunglasses . In the end , Babecrushed his rival with one trotter tied behind his back .
Abyss / Leviathan / DeepStar Six
Three unlike undersea adventure movies cameout around the same time in 1989 . Leviathanwas basically Alien under the water , with the crew being run by a dangerous mutation . In Deep Star Six , a crew of an submarine military foot battle againsta giant colossus . But neither of these photographic film could harbor a tentacle to a newJames Cameron motion-picture show — despite being perhaps Cameron ’s least successful movie , Abyss stillgave thecompetition the bends .
The Prestige / TheIllusionist
One was Christopher Nolan ’s munificent adaption ofthe acclaim novel by Christopher Priest . The other was a strange saga of anillusionist trying to win a womanhood far above his station , using his charming skill , free-base on a account by Steven Millhauser , asterisk Ed Norton . Both movies didinsanely well , but The Prestige wasthe bigger bang of the two .
The Truman Show / EdTV
These movies were a yr apart , in 1998 and1999 , but they both focused on a guy who ’s under constant surveillance andwhose imitation life is a long - running reality TV show . Despite being base on a1994 Canadian motion-picture show , Ron Howard ’s EdTVprobably seemed too derivative of the strike Truman Show , leading to it becoming agiant bomb .
The Curious Case ofBenjamin Button / The Time Traveler ’s married woman
Here we have two love stories necessitate men whogot the short terminal of the stick when it comes to the fourth proportion . It ’s hardto say whose ill is crueler , though . Benjamin is born as a frail old manand maturate up ( down ? ) into a infant , which turns out to be far sadder than agingthe normal way . Henry DeTamble , however , uncontrollably bounces around time , but finds a way back to his love . While it ’s not for us to say who had a tougherlife , Button did far well as amovie .
Legend / Labyrinth
Both of these picture show tried to determine ’ LXXX erafantasy with a huge budget dedicated to cutting - edge special effects ( at thetime ) , hammy acting , and otherworldly options . In fact , the law of similarity couldbe attributed to sharing a cameraman — Alex Thompson . If both studioshadn’t caught on in time , these film might have even been more similar . Neither did very well in the boxwood office , but Labyrinth has become legend for giving the world more guesswork of DavidBowe ’s genital organ than anyone ever asked for .
The Descent / The Cave
Spooky caves with grave monster wereapparently in during the summertime of 2005 , because both of these decided to beabout the same thing . When a group stages an expedition into a mysteriousseries of caves , creatures emerge and start massacre everyone . Panic ensuesand nobody really wins . But if you were looking for a fun horror film to keepyour friends from going spelunking , you probably want to go with the Descent .
Paranormal Activity / TheFourth Kind
Back when Paranormal Activity was in its infancy(and was still something to get unrestrained about ) , it almost had some competitionfrom The Fourth Kind . Sure , one wasabout ghosts and the other was about aliens , but they were both nervous / scarymockumentaries . Still , you never saw a Fifth or Sixth Kind , so the winner isclear .
An American Werewolf inLondon / The Howling
Both of these movies broke ground in 1981 by beingthe first to show the genuine transmutation from man to werewolf — but neitherever became more than a cult classic .
Dracula / Nosferatu theVampyre
There were at half a XII vampire movies beforethe literary genre exploded this past millennium , but only these two wangle to competein a remarkable mode . But after Dracula getting all the sexual love for so many class , his movies had grown kind of moth-eaten . This time it was Nosferatu who came out ontop , and the late Roger Ebert had it on his greatest motion-picture show list .
Mission to Mars / Red Planet
The new millenary saw a bit ofextra involvement inMars , with two movies show different takes on what the major planet mightoffer . The first and more successful flick had a much more plus vibration , withhumanity turning out to be descendants of Martians with the promise of joiningtheir Maker . The latter is a scrap of a horror pic where everything goes wrongon the mission and Martian insect and a gaga automaton kill a pile of people . Because multitude like a happy ending , the first one did good , breaking even atthe box office .
What Killed The Mars Movie Fad ?
Delgo / Avatar
Remember when Delgo , an enliven movie about one species learning to endure likeanother , lit up the big CRT screen and wow critics everywhere ? Oh , of course youdidn’t — because hardly anyone bed that Delgois even a thing . A near intellect for that is thanks to poor marketing technique , but the eternal sleep is because Avatar tookup all the attending . That ’ll find when you go up against what ends up beingthe high grossing picture of all time .
Battle Los Angeles / Skyline
These films were similar for a reason — thedirectors of Skyline worked on theVFX for Battle Los Angeles and arguablyused similar effect in their own pic . The similarities between these twoalien - encroachment motion-picture show set in LA , which came out a few calendar month aside , wereworrisome enough thatSonytook the Skyline directors , the Strause brothers , to court .
Battle of Los Angeles takes fellow LA foreign encroachment film Skyline to motor lodge
Oblivion / After ground
The Earth was in all probability jolly lonely last yr , what with gettingabandonedin both of these 2013 flicks . Both were visually gorgeous movies , butregardless of how good obliviousness was , After Earth was a Shyamalan film , comingon the heel of Last Airbender . Youcan imagine how little Oblivion hadto do to deliver the goods the upper hand .
All The Reasons We Leave Earth for Dead in Science Fiction
Thor / Green Lantern
Back in 2008 , Iron Man and The Dark Knightboth endeavor to own the summertime , with TheDark Knight triumphing hands down . A few years later on , Marvel and DC did battleagain — with two CG - with child tales about alien beau monde that protect the humanrace . The master difference between them is that Thor was good and the GreenLantern was unspeakable . Thor in all likelihood did n’t even need the month - farseeing school principal - scratch itgot because it win by a wide margin .
Mirror , Mirror / SnowWhite and The Huntsman
Why the netherworld was Snow White worth two picture in2012 ? At least there was some diverseness , since Mirror was a comedy while TheHuntsman was a neat - action . Both did ok commercially — but The Huntsman managed to win , partially becauseof a bigger budget .
Sources : TwistedSifter , Reddit,11Points , Vulture , IMDB
BatmanGreen LanternMoviesSnow WhiteThor
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