Why are they working on 2 Alexander The Great movies? I've never noticed studios competing with different movies about the same subject up until the last few years. Deep Impact/Armageddon, Frida/the other one J.Lo was gonna do, Red Planet/Mission To Mars, Dante's Peak/Volcano, Scary Movie/Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The 13th, etc.

And they're all made to be released around the same time. What's with it? Are there more examples of this?

Well, at least in the Alexander example, it looks like the Oliver Stone/Colin Farrell version will be in production well before the Luhrmann/DiCaprio version can. Here's a story from Zap2it about it.

I think the answer to your question is pretty straight forward: the movie studios are trying to oversaturate the market and thus weaken the other studio's product. On TV, whenever a network comes up with a hit, the other networks scramble to try and copy the first network's formula--partly to try and capitalize on the success, but more often to try and take some steam out of the original by oversaturating the market.

There are at least 5 "clones" every year (or within a year).

Don't forget Tombstone/Wyatt Earp

das

Competition.

How could you forget the classic triple play of Deep Star Six/Leviathan/The Abyss

Studios get ahold of an idea and try to be the first one out with it. They pick up on another studio's project being made, quickly get a script in, greenlight it and rush it thru production os that it will be first at the box office. Meanwhile the other studio is probably knee deep in production and has spent too much money already has to complete their film.. hoping that it is better than their clone.

There's one thing you guys are forgetting about - the lead time on the product. A movie can be in production for years (in the case of Armageddon) before finaly hitting the screens. I think the overlap in most cases - not all, mind you - is purely accidental.

How about all these spy movies of 2002!!

What movies were those?

I hope he's not inkling to XXX to 007. God I just saw XXX this past Thursday and I must say it was pure crap. It was like crap was handed to me on a silver platter. Yea the stuns were cool with the heavy metal music....but Vin is just nauseating!

Spy Kids, I Spy, xXx, 007


Honestly, I remember reading a quote from Hugh Grant in EW a few years back that said (and I heavily paraphrase here): "If I make a Tibetan goose watcher movie, there will happen to be another Tibetan goose watcher movie being made at the same time out of sheer luck."

No mention yet of the oddest pairing of all? 1998 gave us, not one, but two!! computer animated movies about insects: A Bugs Life and Antz

Of course, the studios don't usually insist on making these sorts of pairings. They're often compeating with the 'other' film and wouldn't want the movie going public to see the wrong one first and get burned out with the subject matter.

actually, nowadays, I think it's because, if you are willing to watch one Alexander the Great movie, you'll probably be willing to watch the other one. Kind of like what happened between Armageddon and Deep Impact, Antz and a Bug's Life, Volcano and Dante's Peak, Blown Away and The Specialist, Hero and Crouching Tiger.

Well,

as another example, 10 years ago, they released two movies about Chritopher Columbus (the Genoan navigator, not the Harry Potter movie maker!)

To be precise, Ridley Scott made "1492 : Conquest of paradise" for Paramount and John Glen made "Cristopher Columbus:the discovery" for Warner.

I don't see how Hero and Crouching Tiger are related

No mention of this years Maid To Notice and Two Weeks In Manhatten?

This shouldn't have been much of a surprise or accident, since 1992 was the 500th anniversary of Columbus discovering the New World.

I was just trying to make a point, that if one kind of movie sells, probably a similar movie would sell also.

I really liked 1492 Conquest of Paradise, and I think the other one sucked eggs. I think Tom Selleck was in the latter.

Here's some spy movies from the last year:

Sum of All Fears
Undercover Brother
Bad Company
Bourne Identity
Men in Black 2
Austin Powers in Goldmember
Spy Kids 2
XXX
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
The Tuxedo
The Transporter
I Spy
Die Another Day

There's more I probably forgot about or couldn't find, but the year was filled with them and most weren't that good.

Vice/Versa, Like Father Like Son, Big

Braveheart & Rob Roy also came out fairly close together.

I forgot "Fear dot com" and "The Ring"..

We have two Peter Pan movies coming up in the Fall/winter

To go head to head with one anohter and also to Bank on the success of the other. if one successed it is sure that the other will atleast bring in a crowd.

Kinda like Spiderman and 8 legged freaks