Twin films

Not to be confused with Category:Films about twins.

Twin films are films with the same, or very similar, plot produced or released at the same time in two different studios. The phenomenon can result from two or more production companies investing in similar scripts around the same time, resulting in a race to distribute the films to audiences. Some attribute twin films to industrial espionage, the fact of film makers moving between studios, or that the same screenplays are sent to several film studios. Another explanation is that films often deal with topical issues, such as comets, volcano eruptions, reality TV, terrorist attacks or significant anniversaries, resulting in some sort of multiple discovery (also known as simultaneous invention in science) but in film.

Producer Bingham Ray recalls a conversation where the screenwriter of the 2006 Truman Capote biopic Infamous phoned to announce that his script had been finished. Ray said "I know, I've got it on my desk!" before realising that he actually had the screenplay to Capote, a biopic by a different writer.

Examples

Noted examples of twin films are included in this List of Twin films:

• William Wyler's Jezebel (1938) was reportedly created for Bette Davis when she failed to win the highly coveted role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Both films were about feisty, independent Southern belles during the American Civil War.
• John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and John Cromwell's Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940).
• Two Oscar Wilde biopics were released in 1960: Oscar Wilde starring Robert Morley, and The Trials of Oscar Wilde starring Peter Finch.
• Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and Sidney Lumet's Fail-Safe were both released within months of one another in 1964 and deal with the concept of accidental nuclear war, although Dr. Strangelove is satire, while Fail-Safe is a drama.
• Two films based on the life story of Jean Harlow were released in 1965, both titled Harlow. One version was released in May 1965, was directed by Alex Segal and starred Carol Lynley as Harlow and Ginger Rogers as her mother. The other was released in June, was directed by Gordon Douglas and starred Carroll Baker as Harlow and Angela Lansbury as her mother.
• You're a Big Boy Now (1966) and The Graduate (1967) are offbeat comedies about late-blooming young men simultaneously rebelling against their parents and being torn between two women.
• John Boorman's Leo the Last and Hal Ashby's The Landlord were released in the United States a week apart in May 1970. Both deal with issues of class and race and feature an upper-class white man who moves into a lower-class black neighborhood and gets involved with the residents.
• The Strawberry Statement, Getting Straight, The Revolutionary and R.P.M. are all dramas about campus revolt released between May and September of the year 1970.
• Bloody Mama (1970) and The Grissom Gang (1971) are both based on the life story of Ma Barker, although only the first film refers to Barker by her original name. Both take place in the American South of the 1930s and feature a gang of criminals led by a domineering mother. Big Bad Mama, a more fanciful retelling of the Barker myth would follow in 1974.
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and Shaft were released two months apart in 1971. Both are frequently credited as the earliest examples of the blaxploitation genre.
• Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, released within months of each other in 1973, are both adaptations of Broadway musicals based on the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ Superstar, the darker, more rock-oriented piece, was more successful from both critical and financial standpoints than Godspell.
• The Gambler and California Split portray Jewish protagonists, addicted to gambling on a downward spiral. They were released two months apart in 1974.
• The Conversation and The Parallax View are paranoid thrillers about an assassination that were released in April and June 1974. Executive Action, which dramatized the assassination of John F. Kennedy as a conspiracy, had been released a few months earlier.
• Cannonball and The Gumball Rally, both released in 1976, about the same illegal cross-country race.
• Go Tell the Spartans (1978), Coming Home (1978), The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979) are all about American involvement in the Vietnam War.
• The Warriors and The Wanderers are both 1979 films about gang wars between New York teenage street gangs of various ethnicities. The films have somewhat similar titles and share several minor actors and crew members.
• In 1979, three movies based on Bram Stoker's novel Dracula were released simultaneously around the world: Werner Herzog's arthouse re-telling Nosferatu the Vampyre (starring Klaus Kinski), John Badham's horror/romance film Dracula (starring Frank Langella), and Stan Dragoti's comedy Love At First Bite (starring George Hamilton).
• 1981 saw the release of three movies about werewolves: The Howling, Wolfen and An American Werewolf In London.
• Porky's (1981; US: 1982), The Last American Virgin (1982), Screwballs (1983) and Losin' It (1983) are all sex comedies depicting a group of young male friends trying to lose their respective virginities or perform another sexually related mission.
• 1982 and 1983 saw the release of several third installments in 3-D of horror-themed movie franchises: Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982), Amityville 3-D (1983) and Jaws 3-D (1983).
• In 1983, two James Bond movies were released by competing studios: Octopussy starring Roger Moore, and Never Say Never Again starring Sean Connery.
• Georges Bizet's opera Carmen was adapted to film by Carlos Saura in 1983, and by Francesco Rosi in 1984.
• Three competing 1984 films featured the destruction and difficulties of American farming families. Country starred Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard, while The River starred Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek, and Places in the Heart starred Sally Field and John Malkovich.
• Dreamscape and A Nightmare On Elm Street are both 1984 movies about people entering the dreams of others and being able to kill them in real-life by killing them in their dreams. The co-writer of Dreamscape, Chuck Russell, went on to co-write and direct A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987).
• Michael Radford's film adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was released in 1984, four months before the release of Terry Gilliam's dystopic feature film Brazil (1985), which was heavily influenced by Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
• Gremlins (1984), Ghoulies (1985) and Critters (1986) all involve small, destructive, and evil creatures.
• Two zombie movies, The Return of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead, were released almost simultaneously in 1985.
• Weird Science, Real Genius, and My Science Project, which all debuted in August 1985, featured teens dabbling in mad science and winding up in over their heads. In all three, central character(s) are nerds who are trying desperately to fit in with the popular crowd.
• Back to the Future (1985) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) both feature protagonists who go back in time and meet high school versions of their family members, played by the same actors.
• Four vampire films involving teenage characters were released between 1985 and 1987: Fright Night (1985), Vamp (1986), The Lost Boys (1987) and Near Dark (1987).
• Top Gun and Iron Eagle are both 1986 films about fighter pilots.
• An American Tail and The Great Mouse Detective, both released in 1986, are animated feature films starring mice. An American Tail gained a lot of praise and grossed more than The Great Mouse Detective, which was still critically and commercially successful.
• GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords and The Transformers: The Movie were both theatrically released in 1986, and are both animated feature films derived from TV cartoons based on toy lines. Although the GoBots film was released to cinemas six months before the Transformers film, the latter was in production for the better part of two years, before the GoBots film began production (there is also evidence to suggest that the GoBots film was originally intended for television, and was rushed into theaters to beat Transformers).
• The Vindicator (1986) and RoboCop (1987): both movies are about an innocent man who is left mutilated and near-dead by villains, is reconstructed into a cyborg by a special-weapons company, and seeks revenge on the people responsible for his fate.
• Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Hamburger Hill (1987) all featured US soldiers in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Later, Born on the Fourth of July and Casualties of War were released in 1989, with similar Vietnam themes. Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July were both directed by Oliver Stone.
• The Secret of My Succe$s (1987) and Working Girl (1988) are both about people starting new lower-level jobs in New York City, pretending to be executives, coming up with great ideas regarding takeovers, and getting the girl/guy that was "out of their league."
• Like Father, Like Son (released in late 1987), and Big, Vice Versa and 18 Again! (all three released in 1988), portray youngsters as, or who reverse roles with, older men. Another movie of the genre, Dream a Little Dream, was released in 1989. The first of such films was 1976's Freaky Friday starring Jodie Foster.
• Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and Valmont (1989) are both versions of the novel Les liaisons dangereuses.
• Turner & Hooch (1989) and K-9 (1989) are both movies where a police officer gets a dog for a partner.
• DeepStar Six (1989), Leviathan (1989), The Abyss (1989), The Evil Below (1989), Lords of the Deep (1989) and The Rift (1989) are all underwater thrillers involving explorers discovering strange new (and in most of the movies hostile) creatures in the ocean.
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and Robin Hood (1991)
• 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)
• Jurassic Park (1993) and Carnosaur (1993)
• Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994)
• Braveheart (1995) and Rob Roy (1995)
• Little Big League (1994) and Rookie of the Year (1993)
• Babe (1995) and Gordy (1995)
• Showgirls (1995) and Striptease (1996)
• Dante's Peak (1997) and Volcano (1997)
• Kundun (1997) and Seven Years in Tibet (1997)
• Prefontaine (1997) and Without Limits (1998) are both biographical sports films about distance runner Steve Prefontaine.
• Antz (1998) and A Bug's Life (1998); some people believe "Antz" idea was stolen when Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney when Pixar become its major animation studio.
• Deep Impact (1998) and Armageddon (1998)
• Ed TV (1998) and The Truman Show (1998)
• Saving Private Ryan (1998) and The Thin Red Line (1998)
• The Matrix (1999), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), Dark City (1998) and eXistenZ (1999)
• Entrapment (1999) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
• End of Days (1999), Stigmata (1999) and Lost Souls (2000) are all supernatural religious horror films involving the Catholic Church. Both End of Days and Stigmata star Gabriel Byrne as a main character. Both End of Days and Lost Souls involve the theme of Satan taking possession of a man's body.
• The Legend of the Titanic (1999) and Titanic: The Legend Goes On (2000) are both Italian animated films involving the maiden voyage and sinking of the Titanic. Both these films involve a romantic relationship between a young man and woman of different social backgrounds, and both feature anthropomorphic talking mice who are emigrating to America, as well as other talking animals.
• Scary Movie (2000) and Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth (2000)
• Mission to Mars (2000) and Red Planet (2000)
• Wonder Boys (2000) and Finding Forrester (2000)
• Heist (2001) and The Score (2001)
• Stealing Harvard (2002) and Orange County (2002)
• Finding Nemo (2003) and Shark Tale (2004) are both computer animated films that take place in the ocean and involve fish characters; some people believe "Shark" idea was stolen by Jeffrey Katzenberg when he left Disney when Pixar become its major animation studio.
• Chasing Liberty (2004) and First Daughter (2004)
• The Cave (2005) and The Descent (2005)
• Flightplan (2005) and Red Eye (2005)
• Madagascar (2005) and The Wild (2006) are both computer animated films involving similar animal characters from New York's Central Park Zoo being introduced to the wild. See The Wild#Madagascar similarities.
• Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006)
• United 93 (2006) and Flight 93 (2006)
• The Prestige (2006) and The Illusionist (2006)
• The Zodiac (2006), Zodiac (2007) and Curse of the Zodiac (2007)
• Surrogates (2009), Gamer (2009) and Avatar (2009)
• Observe and Report (2009) and Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)
• Skyline (2010) and Battle: Los Angeles (2011) are both alien invasion movies that primarily take place in Los Angeles; Sony Pictures, the studio of "Battle: Los Angeles", later sued the producers of Skyline because their company was hired to develop the visual effects of Battle: Los Angeles and allegedly stolen the idea of the movie during this process.
• Despicable Me (2010) and Megamind (2010) are both about super-villains who turned evil because of bad upbringings, finding themselves seduced to the good side to defeat an even badder guy.
• No Strings Attached (2011) and Friends with Benefits (2011) are both romantic comedies about casual, non-romantic sexual relationships between two people who eventually fall in love, and draw their titles from references this kind of relationship.
• A Hijacking (2012) and Captain Phillips (2013)
• Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and White House Down (2013)
• The Machine (2013), Automata (2014) and Ex Machina (2015)
• Yves Saint Laurent (2014) and Saint Laurent (2014)
• Hercules (2014), The Legend of Hercules (2014) and Hercules Reborn (2014)
• The Equalizer (2014) and John Wick (2014)
• The Jungle Book (2016) and Jungle Book: Origins (2017)

Other meanings

The term "twin films has also been used for films produced by the same production company with the purpose of telling the same story from two different points of view:

• Anatomy of a Marriage: My Days with Françoise (1964) and Anatomy of a Marriage: My Days with Jean-Marc (1964) use the same cast to tell the same story from two different points of view.
• Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

It has also been used for films produced with the purpose of making the same film in two different languages:

• Whispering City (1947) and La Forteresse (1947) have the same director with different sets of actors speaking English or French.
• Orions belte (1985) and Orion's Belt (1985) have different directors but the same set of actors speaking Norwegian or English.
• Raavan (2010) and Raavanan (2010) use similar casts filming the scenes in both Hindi and Tamil.

See also

• Mockbuster, direct-to-DVD films with similar titles and/or theme as blockbuster films, created with the apparent intention of piggy-backing on the publicity of the major film and are often made with a low budget.

External links

• Dueling Movies at TV Tropes