Have you realized that sometimes when there is a big hit movie coming out its usually released in two different versions by two different movie companies?

Many don't really notice it but its there being very very obvious. Ever since I can remember there has always been duplicate movies coming out, its like the big movie companies are always fighting about who has the next big hit movie. The latest most obvious case was the Illusionist and the Prestige, both of those where movies about magicians and magic tricks and both of those had a surprise ending the only difference was that one was shit and the other one was really good. You might say "Oh its just a coincidence" but when you think about it well enough, a movie takes at least 6 months to write, plan, cast, film, edit and produce; so what are the odds of a movie out of every single subject out there be about exactly the same thing as just another movie that's also coming out. I mean think about all the different things you can make a movie about, why on earth would somebody end up making a movie about something the competition is also doing. Its too obvious to think its just mere coincidence.

Ok so maybe you are still thinking the prestige and the illusionist was just a coincidence well what about the most recent one that not many noticed, flags of our fathers and letter from Iwo Jima. One is about the guys who rose the flag at Iwo Jima and the other one is about the fight over Iwo Jima from the point of view of the Japanese, hell the second one even won an Oscar(or a golden globe, or one of those idiotic awards people think are worth a lot) and was directed by non other than Clint Eastwood. But what happened to the first one? It rode along, I bet a lot of people confused both movies, both about war, about Iwo Jima, at the same time. Maybe some even thought the first one was the one from Clint Eastwood and that's the sole reason they went to see it. That's probably what they where aiming at, trying to use the other movie to make some fake marketing for theirs, after all we can all remember the first rule of marketing "the clients are stupid", once you know that you just need to figure out a way to exploit that.

If you still don't believe me how about Armageddon and Deep Impact, Ants and A Bugs Life, The Good Shepherd and the Departed, hell even the Borne Identity and James Bond, well maybe that last one doesn't really fit since once a secret agent fighting for world peace and the other one is an angsty ex secret agent that's going against the system. Anyways you can always notice how there's always one better than the other one, maybe that's the one that was actually planned first. The film business isn't a big secret, hell Ive seen the new Charlie Kaufman script, Synecdoche New York, that's being filmed as you read this flowing around on the net. What makes you think big film companies don't know what the other one is filming, off course they do and off course they are going to take advantage, its the competition for god's sake.

So the big question now, I really do wonder which one was the one originally planned. There's always an obvious favorite for instance in Armageddon and Deep Impact but if you think about it both movies are really bad. Deep Impact passed through like if it was just another dumb attempt at film making while Armageddon tried to explain that you could save the earth by nuking a meteorite the size of Texas. So the popular one was obviously Armageddon, that's the one that most people remember by now, maybe that's the one that had the most money invested in, hell it had Aerosmith singing the main theme and a bunch of other expensive actors in it. Surprisingly Armageddon although got a lot of hype(probably because of Disney) is by far one of the most controversial movies Ive ever heard about, hell its the only move I know that had was nominated for several academy awards AND golden raspberry awards at the same time. I don't really trust the Oscars(there's a lot of good movies out there to be focusing on the shitty amount they actually consider) nor the razzies(there's a lot of bad movies being vomited by Hollywood to be focusing on the shitty amount they actually consider) hell I even think they are the same guys, the surprising thing is the movie had 7 razzies nominations, one won and 4 Oscar nominations none won and one of the nominations was for exactly the same thing THE SONG. I personally think it was a shitty movie and it still holds an average of 5.8 on the rating in imdb.com but I also think Deep Impact was just as bad except nobody really noticed it that much because there wasn't much hype.

So I guess you can tell which one was the original by identifying which one was planned better, you would usually think that if one is planned better you would get a better movie but Armageddon is the clear example of the opposite. The other ones aren't as close a call, its actually very obvious which movie is badly made when comparing it against the other one. Ants and A Bugs Life for instance, I don't know who's idea was it to make Ants but he at least should have thought about making them actually look nice instead all the characters seem like robots sent from outer space and you can go ahead and think well technology wasn't that good back then, they could only draw squares on the computer but then you look at A Bugs Life and you notice those ones aren't scary. The illusionist ends up being stupidly predictive and the result at the ending poorly justifies the cause of the main plot while the Prestige leads you to constantly believe you finally understand the movie just to prove you wrong again and again. I cant really say anything about the Iwo Jima ones since I haven't really seen any. I have seen very very few good war movies and those are usually the ones that look back at war as if its the worst mistake the USA makes over and over again, then its even funny since they just keep doing it again but when its some sort of dramatization about heroism I'm not really interested, I guess I don't really like the idea of having humans killing other humans and being considered heroes for it unless its Mexicans killing somebody else. The Good Shepherd proved to be the most boring movie Ive ever seen, I never thought a movie vomited by Hollywood and worst, directed by Robert De Niro, about spies could ever be boring, worst of all, that boring. Although on second thought the idea of the Departed being the one who was actually planned is very far off too. Think of this, whichever movie was the unplanned one would have had to be planned faster than the other one right well since The Good Shepherd was a Robert De Niro film it did cause some hype while on the other hand in the Departed they pretty much just stole a script from probably the best Chinese movie ever made and claimed it for themselves, now you know you have a very good script just throw in a key actor or two, or three that you know they wont make a bad movie(at least not together cause even if one fucks up the rest can still save it) and then get some good director to direct it. Surprisingly even though it does seem that the good shepherd was the worst one, it also seems that the Departed might just as well have been a rushed movie, hell its easier to steal a script and make a "remake" to a movie that most people don't know of besides the Good Shepherd has good actors as well, Robert de Niro, Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, well at least expensive ones. So maybe budget isn't the key to it either, maybe its all about the planning.

Anyways I suppose the whole deal is even more obvious than I actually made it look like, I guess I sort of set it out as a conspiracy theory which is way too obvious to be something like that. I'm sure there's lots of movies where the same thing happen but I just cant remember them right now. Well the whole point of this is with so many topics to choose from instead of just wasting money to make an ok movie that's going to try and enjoy the hype of another movie those idiots at the film companies should be doing something more productive liking getting some decent scripts instead of trying to copy something else. I'm sure there's a lot of screen writers writing a bunch of good stuff out there for them to be settling with whatever they can get as fast as they can, arn't there?

Fuck it I'm going to write a script myself.