In a previous post, I discussed multiple, independent, simultaneous discovery in science and technology, which supports the claim that science evolves. The authors of Multiple Discovery devote a chapter to arts and literature, but their main focus is science. I was thinking about multiple, independent, simultaneous creation in the arts, and I recalled several cases where two movies on the same theme were released at about the same time, apparently by coincidence:
- Deep Impact (1998) and Armageddon (1998)
- Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006)
- Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and Valmont (1989)
- The Matrix (1999) and The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
Popping up to the meta-level, I realized that I was certainly not the first person to notice these “coincidences”. ProhibitOnions has a huge list of films with similar themes and release dates. The interesting question, from an evolutionary perspective, is whether these are coincidence or deliberate. ProhibitOnions writes:
“In the film industry, two or more films with similar plots or themes may be released within a close period of time. Sometimes, this may be coincidental as the result of two studios independently hoping to capitalise on a current trend. Other times, however, a script will be bought and put into production by one studio, and a competing studio — which may hear about the production through word of mouth, trade papers (such as Variety), or through the internet — will put into production a film with a similar plotline, in an effort to capitalise on its box office potential.”
The movie producers may claim coincidence, even when it is not true, in order to make their work seem more original. However, it seems to me that coincidence is indeed the most likely explanation for most of these cases:
“It is curious, considering how cautious and market-researched the film industry is, to realise how many times this has happened; how many times a production team has alighted on some out-of-the-way topic only to discover a rival group rolling up at the exact same moment.”
“But if these rival projects arrive like conjoined twins, each scrambling for the same food supply, it’s hardly surprising that one will flourish and the other will flounder. And generally the victor is the film that takes pole position, that shoulders its sibling out of the way.”
“Two movies about the 1976 taste test in which US wines beat their French counterparts are shooting. On past experience, one will sink.”
(Note the metaphorical allusion to biological evolution, with competing twins. But how can a conjoined twin shoulder its sibling out of the way?) Deliberately copying another movie, without allowing time for it to fade from public memory, and given that the first movie has a head start, is clearly not a good strategy to make a profit.
Filed under: Evolution, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science | Tagged: evolutionary realism, heroic theory, movies
There is a company that makes a living betting that your last assertion is wrong. The Asylum make straight-to-DVD releases that are unashamed rip-offs of blockbusters that have just hit the cinema. For examples, have a look at “Alien vs. Hunter”, “Transmorphers”, “Da Vinci Treasure”, or “Snakes on a Train”. It seems that to make a profit they focus on making these films with very small budgets.
The movie pairs that come to my mind are: Finding Nemo / A Shark’s Tale; The Greatest Game Ever Played / Bobby Jones (Stroke of Genius); A Bug’s Life / Ants (as you can see, I watch kids movies a lot!)
I’ll buy your evolutionary argument for simultaneous discoveries in science, but I don’t think it extends to movies (in general). Films like “United 93″ and “Flight 93″ obviously arise from the same environmental circumstances, so maybe they are “independent” in some sense. But most of the time, I think, studios steal from each other, because they believe they have a chance at leveraging the others’ success.
Take “The Golden Compass” for instance. The book has been around for more than 10 years. Why did movie producers go for it now - because they saw there was an appetite for children’s fantasy stories (viz. Harry Potter successes). I don’t see this as an evolutionary process, really.
Well, at least the Capote/Infamous example is not deliberate. I can see that more research is needed. :-)
When I was younger, I noticed several of these; I hypothesized at the time that they were an intentional, controlled experiment. I no longer think that’s the case, but it’s an interesting theory: release two movies with a couple of substantial differences (maybe far-removed things like production cost/quality trade-offs, or specific aspects of plots and subplots and endings, or whatnot) and see how well they do with various audiences. Do it enough times and you could start to find sweet-spots for some of these things.
I don’t think it holds water — there are too many other variables that are too hard to control. Not to mention that they’re coming from competing studios that have no reason to share enough info to actually do good analysis, but it still has some explanatory power as a (wacky) hypothesis.
In addition to The Matrix and Thirteenth Floor there was also the 1999 eXistenZ by Cronenberg.
I doubt this was a mere coincidence given the paucity of prior movies where the theme involved people caught unaware inside virtual realities.
I doubt this was a mere coincidence given the paucity of prior movies where the theme involved people caught unaware inside virtual realities.
I know of three novels that explored this theme before 1999:
Darwinia (1998), Robert Charles Wilson
The Cybernetic Walrus (1995), Jack L. Chalker
Realtime Interrupt (1995), James P. Hogan
With a bit of searching, I found a novel from 1964, which was made into a TV movie in 1973:
Simulacron-3 (1964), Daniel F. Galouye
Of course, it could be argued that the concept has its origins in the Hindu concept of Maya. But why did three movies on this theme appear in 1999?
I was thinking of some sort of Poisson distribution estimate of the odds that three movies of a “computer Maya” theme would appear in 1999 given the fact that such a movie theme was so rare before that year.
Explaining (away?) such “coincidences” is one of the more entertaining things we try to do in life. “Correlation is not causation…” and all that sophomoric clap trap. I mean, just because a sequence of numbers you encounter has the Kolmogorov length of “while(i++){print sum+=i}” doesn’t mean that is the “true cause” of the sequence, now does it? It is, however, a damn good guess as are all our “paranoid” inductions of small K.
Explaining (away?) such “coincidences” is one of the more entertaining things we try to do in life.
I think we’re faced with three hypotheses:
1. This is purely coincidence; random chance.
2. This is simply direct copying. One group created an innovative, original movie concept and a second group heard the first group’s idea and deliberately imitated it.
3. This is cultural evolution. There was a vacant niche in the memetic ecosystem and the niche was filled by three instances of parallel evolution.
I suppose the way to analyze this is to select a random sample from the List of films with similar themes and release dates. For each case in the random sample, further research is required to decide which of the three hypotheses is most likely. I guess each hypothesis has some supporting examples, so the question is which hypothesis has the most supporting examples? I prefer the third explanation, but I agree that more work is required to make a strong case.
Rereading my post above, I see that I used the term “coincidence” to refer to a confused blend of hypotheses 1 and 3. (Trapped, once again, by binary thinking.)