Dueling volcanos and rival expeditions to Mars. Would
you believe that these very similar movies were released back to back?
All the way back in 1883, Italian author Carlo Collodi shared his best known work,
"The Adventures of Pinocchio," with the world. In the 140 years since it received
its first literary release, the story of the living puppet has been adapted
almost too many times to count, with Disney's 1940 animated classic being
perhaps the most well known. So why was 2022 the year of Pinocchio?
First came the simply titled "Pinocchio" in September, Disney's live-action remake
of their own animated classic. Helmed by acclaimed filmmaker Robert Zemeckis,
who's known for "Back to the Future" and "Forrest Gump," it stars Tom Hanks as Geppetto,
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jiminy Cricket, and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Pinocchio himself.
Unfortunately, this outing didn't quite reach the lofty status of the original,
falling flat on its face with critics and audiences alike despite some impressive visuals.
Not long after, Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro released his own spin on the tale
with the help of Netflix — and this one arrived to a much warmer reception
and an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Putting his signature dark
fantasy twist on the story, which was brought to life entirely in stop-motion,
Del Toro lends an undeniable charm to the adaptation. "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio"
features the talents of Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Cate Blanchett, and Finn Wolfhard.
How many more adaptations of Pinocchio will make their way to streaming services
over the next few years? We'll just have to see for ourselves.
"Oh, hi! It's me!"
(rabbits grumble)
"I cannot die!"
"We know!"
"I can't die!"
Westerns have a long tradition of playing with iconic trademarks — but in 1991, audiences were
given two strikingly similar entries to the genre: "Tombstone" and "Wyatt Earp." Arriving
exactly six months apart from one another, both films focused on the gunfight at the O.K. Corral,
which saw the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday face off against the feared Clanton-McLaury
gang. As is often the case when two related titles duke it out in theaters, the first
to reach the masses is generally considered the winner in the fight for dominance. In this case,
that proved doubly true: "Tombstone" didn't just win the box office battle,
but it has since gone on to be remembered as one of the best Westerns of all time.
While both films dedicate significant screen time to the infamous gunfight,
the biggest difference between the two is their approach. As the name suggests, the focus in
"Tombstone" is entirely on the events that led to the bloody day in the town of Tombstone, Arizona,
and it's rounded out with an impeccable cast that includes big names like Kurt Russell,
Val Kilmer, and Sam Elliott. On the other hand, "Wyatt Earp" was more focused on depicting the
broader life of Earp in its entirety. Starring Kevin Costner in the titular role, this version
shows us everything from Earp's adolescence during the Civil War to his life in the years
after the bloodbath in Arizona. It simply wasn't nearly as big of a hit with critics or audiences.
On a fateful fall night in 1959, four members of the Clutter family were brutally murdered by
home invaders Richard Hickock and Perry Smith. The brutal nature of the crime — as well as the
ensuing manhunt for the suspects — led famed author Truman Capote to the town of Holcomb,
Kansas, where he found inspiration to begin writing his groundbreaking novel "In Cold
Blood." Widely considered to be the author's best work, it's credited with kickstarting the
true crime genre, and it remains compelling to this day. Nearly 40 years after its publication,
the story of Capote's struggle to write the book saw two film adaptations made back to back.
Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead role,
the fittingly titled "Capote" follows the author as he researches the grisly case in Kansas,
with a focus on his time spent with killer Perry Smith, played by Clifton Collins
Jr. A by-the-numbers drama performed to the highest degree, "Capote" earned itself an
impressive five Academy Award nominations and snagged a Best Actor win for Hoffman.
"You think that was too much?"
"A little bit!" [laughing]
Despite being incredibly similar by nature of telling the same story,
the competing biopic "Infamous" — starring Toby Jones and Daniel Craig — strays from
its competition with a more down-to-earth tone. Although it's a capable retelling
of the author's life, "Infamous" struggled to escape from under the
shadow of "Capote," and never quite achieved the same level of success.
In the summer of 1997, NASA's Sojourner rover landed on the planet Mars, becoming the first
successful touchdown on the Red Planet in over 20 years. With Mars now on the public's mind,
filmmakers scrambled to capitalize on the wave of interest, with "Mission to
Mars" making its own landing just before the spring of 2000. Directed by Brian De
Palma and featuring a solid cast including Don Cheadle, Tim Robbins, and Gary Sinise,
the film is set during humanity's first manned journey to the planet Mars.
Unfortunately for the crew, the pioneering venture soon runs into catastrophe,
which is exactly the same fate that awaited the crew in "Red Planet" when it made its own
landing in November of the same year. A much more bleak look at our future,
"Red Planet" tells of a near-future Earth on its last legs due to a prolonged climate crisis,
leading humanity to seek refuge on Mars. Val Kilmer stars as the leader of the crew
of the "Mars-1," a ship sent to the titular celestial body in a desperate
attempt to preserve the future of the human race. Of course, things go terribly wrong.
Like both movie missions to our cosmic neighbor,
the twin films themselves were outright disasters. In addition to struggling at the ticket counter,
"Red Planet" and "Mission to Mars" were met with equally poor reviews.
The oddly similar animated kids movies "Despicable Me" and "Megamind" got their cinematic releases in
2010, with both films subverting the superhero formula by focusing on diabolical villains as
opposed to the good guys. The first of the two to appear on the silver screen was "Despicable
Me," which saw Steve Carrell play Gru: a comical baddie who adopts three plucky girls.
"So good night, sleep tight,
and don't let the bedbugs bite… because there are literally thousands of them."
Aided by his horde of bright yellow — and highly marketable — minions,
it's not hard to see why "Despicable Me" was such a hit with fans of all ages.
Dreamworks' effort "Megamind," though — perhaps hoping to distance the film from
the competitive spring and summer release windows — arrived in the comparably quieter
fourth quarter of that year. Telling the story of the titular alien supervillain — voiced by Will
Ferrell — whose hubris causes him to switch from villain to hero, the plucky comedy was
received well by most viewers. It earned a respectable $300 million in ticket sales,
but was still roundly defeated at the box office by "Despicable Me," which has since
received multiple spin-offs and sequels. "Megamind" has struggled to get a sequel
off the ground since its release, with only a follow-up small screen streaming series
currently in development — but it's still an incredibly fun film with a cult following.
Long before "Despicable Me" and "Megamind," another pair
of similar computer animated films took a tussle in the dirt. It was the late '90s,
and Pixar had just burst onto the scene with their massive hit "Toy
Story," the first feature film to be completely computer animated. In an effort to keep up,
newly formed rival studio DreamWorks released a CGI animated film of their own in October of 1998,
a family-friendly romp titled "Antz" — spelled with a Z. Just over a month later, Pixar fired
back with their second feature, "A Bug's Life," a film that was remarkably similar to their
competitor's first offering. That made the fall of '98 a season packed with bug-themed adventures.
These two might be the most similar on this list, as both films follow an ant tasked with saving
their colony from certain doom. What's far more interesting than the films themselves, though,
is the behind-the-scenes controversy that cast a shadow over their releases. According
to a 1998 article in Entertainment Weekly, the overlap between the two films was no accident.
"A Bug's Life" director John Lasseter accused Jeffrey Katzenberg — DreamWorks co-founder and
former Disney chairman — of intentionally trying to squash the success of "A Bug's
Life" with his own studio's "Antz" using inside information. Highly controversial at the time,
it's somewhat surprising that not all of the twin films on
this list had similar accusations of plagiarism toward their productions.
"Don't follow orders your whole life. Think for yourself."
In the late '90s, reality TV was taking off, and Hollywood was taking notice. In quick succession,
a pair of major releases played off the idea that a person could find themself the star of
their very own program — whether they like it or not. "The Truman Show" was released first,
and it capped off a defining decade for Jim Carrey by putting him in the role of typical suburbanite
Truman Burbank. Little does he know, however, that his entire life has been lived under the
watchful eyes of television audiences around the globe, and everything around him is an elaborate,
carefully-constructed false reality. It all comes crashing down when Truman gets the idea to finally
leave his hometown, forcing the people in charge to try and keep him from discovering the truth.
Following in its footsteps was director Ron Howard's "EDtv" — starring Matthew McConaughey
as Edward Pekurny, the around-the-clock star of his own reality television program. Unlike "The
Truman Show," there's no mystery to the plot. Ed is — at least at first — a willing participant
to the producer's latest reality TV series, as every step of his life is recorded for hungry home
viewers. But that lack of mystery, combined with a plot that just felt like a repeat of
"The Truman Show," meant that "EDtv" just couldn't win over the same audiences. Would
we still be talking about "EDtv" if it had been released first? Maybe so — but
it's hard to disagree that "The Truman Show" is definitely the better movie.
It may seem strange — and it is — but 1997 saw two
separate and unrelated biopics based on the life of the 14th Dalai Lama,
but told from very different perspectives. They arrived in the latter half of 1997,
with one becoming a box office hit, and the other going on to become an under-appreciated gem.
Arriving in September that year was Jean-Jacques Annaud's "Seven Years in Tibet," which focuses
on the life of Austrian mountaineer and former SS member Heinrich Harrer, played
by Brad Pitt. Imprisoned in India by British forces at the onset of the Second World War,
Heinrich eventually escapes, fleeing to neighboring Tibet and quickly becoming immersed
in their way of life. It's there that he meets the young Dalai Lama, befriending the spiritual
child leader as an impending conflict with the Chinese government begins brewing on the horizon.
"Do you like movies?"
"You know, I haven't seen a movie in about eight years, but as I recall, yes, very much."
A few months later, audiences would return to Tibet with "Kundun." This time,
the plot was entirely focused on the Dalai Lama,
encompassing everything from his selection as the spiritual leader to his eventual exile from
Tibet in 1959. Directed by Martin Scorsese and reviewed more favorably than its predecessor,
"Kundun" was nominated for four Academy Awards that year. It remains a seminal film on the
complicated relations between China and the region of Tibet — even if it flopped at the box office.
Every year, cinemas are packed with animal pictures perfect for audiences
looking for some family-friendly fun, and there's no creature studios would rather
turn to than man's best friend. In the spring and summer of 2019,
we got two eerily similar releases that not only starred some lovable pups,
but even went a step further by having the dogs themselves narrate the events on screen.
First up was "A Dog's Journey," released in May of that year. The first feature film by
Gail Mancuso — perhaps best known for her work on "Modern Family" and "30 Rock" — it's a sequel to
2017's emotional rollercoaster "A Dog's Purpose." Picking up where the first entry left off,
it continues the story of Bailey across his many canine lives, as he reunites with his owner time
and time again. Close behind was "The Art of Racing in the Rain," which similarly follows
the ups and downs of a dog's life with his human companion. Told in flashback, Kevin Costner voices
Enzo, an aging Golden Retriever looking back on his racecar-driving owner, Denny. So which
heartstring-tugging puppy picture ended up winning out? Both of these fuzzy flicks wound up in the
doghouse with critics, but "A Dog's Journey" brought home a bit more loot at the box office.
Films and television are ripe with adaptations of the Greek myth of Hercules,
with films as far back as the '50s and a hit TV series starring Kevin Sorbo in the
'90s. The tale of the legendary warrior is a timeless one — and in 2014, we got not one,
but two more films to add to the long list of adaptations. Despite starring a pair of
well-known names, neither was able to match the legend's strength when it came to quality.
The first in theaters was "The Legend of Hercules," with Kellan Lutz starring as
the Greek hero as he embarks on an epic quest for redemption. Universally panned,
the film couldn't even recoup its modest budget. In the wake of that flop was the plainly titled
"Hercules," which featured Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in the title role. Telling the story
of a latter day Hercules, the film follows the aging hero as he wanders as an aimless mercenary.
When the kingdom of Thrace is threatened with annihilation, Hercules is left with no choice
but to rise to the occasion, calling upon his nearly forgotten strength and courage.
While neither film was particularly good, Johnson's effort fared better at the box office,
likely aided by his superstar name at the top of the poster.
The first half of 1997 inexplicably saw a pair of volcano-themed films flow through theaters. In
fact, they were practically released on top of one another, with "Dante's Peak" arriving in February
and "Volcano" following in April. Though neither of the two proved to be a true winner over the
other, both succeeded in providing plenty of the fiery mayhem you'd hope for from a volcano flick.
In "Dante's Peak," a dormant volcano near a small Washington town is on the brink of
eruption. The catch? No one but Pierce Brosnan's seasoned scientist Harry Dalton seems convinced
of the impending cataclysm, with his doomsday predictions falling on deaf ears. Meanwhile,
a budding relationship between Harry and the town's mayor — played by Linda
Hamilton — complicates matters, and gives him a personal stake in the community's future.
Dialing up the explosive action to 11, it's not a small town that comes under peril in
"Volcano," but the entirety of Los Angeles. When violent earthquakes disturb a previously
unknown volcano beneath the streets of L.A., it sends lava spewing throughout the streets,
causing untold destruction. While neither film quite managed to become a classic,
both are fun, exciting adventures that should definitely satisfy disaster fans.
England's most famous Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, remains a symbol of British defiance
and one of the most revered leaders of World War II. Proving that sentiment are a pair of biopics,
"Churchill" and "Darkest Hour," both of which were oddly released in 2017. Even though both
films follow the same historical figure, they're fairly distinct in style, tone, and setting.
"Churchill" kicks off in the later period of Churchill's wartime career,
set amidst the tense days just prior to the Allied invasion of Normandy. Here,
Churchill is played by Brian Cox, and the film paints him in an entirely different light
than history has come to remember. Cox portrays Churchill as a more cautious and vulnerable man,
with reservations about seeing through the impending assault. It's an intriguing study
of one of history's best-known figures — but "Churchill" was immediately met with controversy,
as some historians took issue with the depiction of the Prime Minister as a hesitant commander.
"There are lessons we learned in the last war. I don't want to make the same mistakes!"
"Of course…"
"And I shall not be stopped from speaking my mind!"
Released later but set earlier, "Darkest Hour" takes place during the transition
of power as Winston Churchill takes over for the outgoing Neville Chamberlain. Meanwhile,
the looming threat of a German invasion of the British Isles has left the nation in a crisis,
and the newly-elected Churchill must wrestle with the choice
between total capitulation or continuing the desperate fight for survival. Ultimately,
"Darkest Hour" proved both more memorable and a bigger success than its eponymously titled twin,
and Gary Oldman ended up winning an Oscar for his portrayal of the UK leader.
You've almost certainly seen or at least heard of "Top Gun," the 1986 hit that launched a
young Tom Cruise to superstardom as Naval aviator Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. The Cold
War action flick was the top grossing title of its year, a feat even its surprisingly
successful sequel couldn't pull off some three decades later. With all that in mind,
it might surprise some to learn that not only was "Top Gun" competing with
another tale of airborne aces in '86, but it wasn't even the first to see release.
That's right — beating "Top Gun" to the theaters by four months was "Iron Eagle," a similar story
of gutsy fighter pilots duking it out in the skies. It all starts when Doug Masters, Air
Force Academy reject and son of a decorated pilot, hears that his father has been shot down over the
fictional nation of Bilya. Springing into action, Doug turns to reservist Colonel and Vietnam
veteran Charles "Chappy" Sinclair to procure a pair of fighter jets and complete a daring
and unsanctioned rescue of his father. Pushing the limits of campy, improbable action to the
limit — even for the '80s — "Iron Eagle" defied its abysmal reception with a trio of sequels,
but none of them came anywhere close to the billion-dollar mark like "Top Gun: Maverick" did.