Movies that ruined your life as a writer?

[The Next Big Ching]

I'm sure it's happened to many of you guys...you were working on or wrote a script which you thought was original and couldn't wait to try to get it out there.

Then you find out about another movie which the exact same storyline/concept as yours which makes you want to pound your head into a random blunt object...or maybe not.

A friend of mine was working on a novel about a lonely guy that cleans up crime scenes for a living...then came Sunshine Cleaning.

As for me, I used to work at an amusement park, so one day I decide to write a script heavily based on my experience there. I wrote an ensemble script about one day at the amusement park through the eyes of a games employee, a manager, a blind date, and a family, where the father is very unenthusiastic about how much money a day at the amusement park sucks out.

Then came Adventureland...which actually turned out to be a very good movie. A part of me thought, "Hey, if this movie's a hit maybe my script might have a chance."......then the movie did poorly at the box office.

Anyways, post some of your stories, because I'm sure there are more of these out there.

[wcmartell]

SUNSHINE CLEANING was a rip-off of CURDLED (just with a LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE plotline).

So, what would be the problem with doing some other type of story in that arena?

- Bill

[EvilRbt]

I was a little annoyed when THE LOST SQUAD sold to Rogue in 2007 because I had written a similarly-themed project THE LOST PATROL in 1999 and it had bounced around from producer to producer ever since. THE LOST SQUAD sold because, surprise-surprise, it was a comic book, first written in 2005.

Fortunately, Legendary Pictures snapped up THE LOST PATROL last summer and I think it is both a better project and more likely to be produced than THE LOST SQUAD. Only time will tell.

The lesson here: whatever idea you have, someone else has it too.

I remember several years ago I read two completely unrelated scripts for New Regency in the same day and they both had the exact same premise!

[The Next Big Ching]

SUNSHINE CLEANING was a rip-off of CURDLED (just with a LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE plotline).

So, what would be the problem with doing some other type of story in that arena?

- Bill

I've never heard of Curdled before. It's just such a crushing blow to think that you wrote something original and to find out that someone else was doing something very similar.

[Tony R]

Premonition
The Forgotten
The Reaping (especially this one)

[The Next Big Ching]

I remember several years ago I read two completely unrelated scripts for New Regency in the same day and they both had the exact same premise!

Interesting...was one clearly better than the other? Oh and congrats on the Lost Patrol.

[EvilRbt]

Interesting...was one clearly better than the other? Oh and congrats on the Lost Patrol.

Yes, but neither were that good. I'd have to dig into my archives to recall the exact premise, but they were both crime dramas and it was almost spooky how similar they were.

Thanks for the congrats. Hopefully it won't languish in development hell and the cameras will roll in 2010.

[Moviequill]

SUNSHINE CLEANING was a rip-off of CURDLED (just with a LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE plotline).

So, what would be the problem with doing some other type of story in that arena?

- Bill

yeah, if they were women, do it with men... or rookies just starting... instead of stumbling on a murder, maybe they find a cache of cash... if it was in LA, set it in Chicago... don't waste the research, just find a new angle

[wcmartell]

I was thinking rom-com.

[TheKeenGuy]

My co-writer and I were shopping an action script set in Cancun during Spring Break. Then THE REAL CANCUN, the Real World knock-off set in Cancun during Spring Break, was a giant box office failure and that killed our script.

Since then, THE RUNDOWN had quite a few similar beats as that script's plot line to the point that, when I left the theater, I ran to read the name of the production company on the movie poster to see if it was the one we had almost set the script up at.

[Sinnycal]

God, yes.

Fuh que, Stranger Than Fiction.

[mikeb]

My co-writer and I were shopping an action script set in Cancun during Spring Break. Then THE REAL CANCUN, the Real World knock-off set in Cancun during Spring Break, was a giant box office failure and that killed our script.

Since then, THE RUNDOWN had quite a few similar beats as that script's plot line to the point that, when I left the theater, I ran to read the name of the production company on the movie poster to see if it was the one we had almost set the script up at.

You could have just waited for the credits.

[TheKeenGuy]

You could have just waited for the credits.
I decided that it would be easier to punch a movie poster than movie credits.

[earlyman75]

When I first really started getting into screenwriting, I had this idea for "The Shining" on board a space station or starship. I was telling a friend of mine about it, and he didn't realize I was talking about something I was writing, but instead he thought I was talking about a movie he had seen previews for. It was "Event Horizon."

I absolutely had to go see the movie on opening night to see how close it was to my idea. Some parts were eerily close, others not so much.

A few years ago I came up with an idea for a family comedy called "Timmy's Room." The idea was that a group of tiny aliens crash land in the bedroom of a little boy, and he has to fend them off and save the world. Heck, the logline was so good that one of the mods here even advised me to pull it after I posted it. I was so stoked about the idea that I immediately emailed it to my manager, but he shot back a few minutes later with "Nah-- someone is already working on it. It's called 'They Came from Upstairs.'"

Just recently I was taking my kids to the movies and I saw the standup for "Aliens in the Attic." The tagline: "They came from upstairs."

That one was brutal because I still think my idea was a heck of a lot more fun. More of an "Innerspace" or "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" twist, with little kids zipping around a house in a miniaturized space ship, having full on dog fights with the baddies. I still remember this sequence I came up with that involved our heroes navigating their miniaturized ship through the burning embers in a fire place. It would have have been a lot of fun.

[Madbandit]

When I first really started getting into screenwriting, I had this idea for "The Shining" on board a space station or starship. I was telling a friend of mine about it, and he didn't realize I was talking about something I was writing, but instead he thought I was talking about a movie he had seen previews for. It was "Event Horizon."

I absolutely had to go see the movie on opening night to see how close it was to my idea. Some parts were eerily close, others not so much.

A few years ago I came up with an idea for a family comedy called "Timmy's Room." The idea was that a group of tiny aliens crash land in the bedroom of a little boy, and he has to fend them off and save the world. Heck, the logline was so good that one of the mods here even advised me to pull it after I posted it. I was so stoked about the idea that I immediately emailed it to my manager, but he shot back a few minutes later with "Nah-- someone is already working on it. It's called 'They Came from Upstairs.'"

Just recently I was taking my kids to the movies and I saw the standup for "Aliens in the Attic." The tagline: "They came from upstairs."

That one was brutal because I still think my idea was a heck of a lot more fun. More of an "Innerspace" or "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" twist, with little kids zipping around a house in a miniaturized space ship, having full on dog fights with the baddies. I still remember this sequence I came up with that involved our heroes navigating their miniaturized ship through the burning embers in a fire place. It would have have been a lot of fun.

Don't worry. "Aliens in the Attic", whose original title was "They Came From Upstairs" doesn't look like anything worth watching.

[The Next Big Ching]

I decided that it would be easier to punch a movie poster than movie credits.

....so was it the same company?

[Sinnycal]

Don't worry. "Aliens in the Attic", whose original title was "They Came From Upstairs" doesn't look like anything worth watching.

What's astounding is that they probably had a focus group dedicated to that title change.

[beerbeastredux]

TWILIGHT.

No, none of MY movies are similar, but thanks to Twilight, it'll be impossible to pitch anything werewolf or vampire related now without some smartass saying "Oh, so it's like Twilight?"

[Sinnycal]

TWILIGHT.

No, none of MY movies are similar, but thanks to Twilight, it'll be impossible to pitch anything werewolf or vampire related now without some smartass saying "Oh, so it's like Twilight?"

I've actually been obsessing over a vampire/werewolf concept for the past week. I don't remember how it started, I still can't see myself writing that type of movie, and I don't have anything resembling a story in mind, but I've been going nuts with the mythology and revamping Catholicism for a world where the church is the only thing staving off human extinction. I even put together a flow chart illustrating the new church hierarchy.

[The Next Big Ching]

TWILIGHT.

No, none of MY movies are similar, but thanks to Twilight, it'll be impossible to pitch anything werewolf or vampire related now without some smartass saying "Oh, so it's like Twilight?"

Not just that, but True Blood as well.

But, vampire movies have been around for a long long time. You just have to try to find a fresh new angle on it.

I still think the freshest new angle on werewolf movies for example was Ginger Snaps.

[Anagram]

i'm with bill. Do it, but make it different enough so it's fresh. And make sure its better, of course ;)

[Signal30]

I literally threw a script in the trashcan after watching the opening of 28 Days Later...

My hook was identical... animals rightists unleash a contaminated monkey from a research lab, and a zombie apocalypse ensues. A zombie script being a zombie script, it wasn't like going back to the drawering board once the hook was lost.

That stuff hits the air, and it's a race to get it done. Better movie than what I would have written, though.

[earlyman75]

Better movie than what I would have written, though.

I really dig the fact that you admit that. It's more common (at least for me) to have sour grapes about it.

There's another biggie I forgot to mention-- so close to my idea that I actually thought I had been ripped off because my spec script had made its rounds through Fox, and the "suspect" movie was a Fox product.

I wrote a script called "The Battle of Bloomington," which was about a small town nobody who decides to run for mayor against a major political heavyweight who is adored by the whole town. In the process, the two also wind up competing for the affection of the town beauty. My script featured a series of ongoing gags related to a fraternal order of old men named the Moose Lodge.

So about a year after readers at Fox gave me notes on my script, "Welcome to Mooseport" comes out. Now please don't get me wrong-- I'm 99.99999% sure my story was NOT ripped off. I'm well aware that people often generate the same ideas at the same time, but that one made my heart sink when I heard about it.

Like Signal, though, I actually think it was better than my script (which I guess is kind of sad since Mooseport wasn't very well received!). The idea to make the political heavyweight a former president was great, and it was something my script lacked. My script was very gag-driven, and while I still think a lot of the gags were funny, the setup wasn't as good as it should be.

Still, Mooseport completely killed any notion of shopping my Battle of Bloomington script around.

[MacG]

My manager called me the other day to tell me the shooting draft of the upcoming LEGION movie changed radically from the spec he read while working at UTA a while back. It now features elements that are extremely similar to my supernatural thriller script, to the point people are telling him, after listening to his pitch of my work, "It sounds too similar to LEGION."

So that definitely pisses me off.

Adding insult to injury, the first panel my friends and I got into at Comic-Con was the LEGION one! ARGH!

[Geoff Alexander]

Yes, but neither were that good. I'd have to dig into my archives to recall the exact premise, but they were both crime dramas and it was almost spooky how similar they were.

Thanks for the congrats. Hopefully it won't languish in development hell and the cameras will roll in 2010.

God knows they have enough money laying around that place.