- 7/7/2025
Ever notice how Hollywood seems to double up on ideas? We’re looking at movies with nearly identical plots that hit theaters right around the same time, each offering its own spin. From volcanic eruptions and White House takeovers to reality TV satire, these films forced audiences to pick a side. Which similar movie won you over? Let us know in the comments!
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00it seems that you've been living two lives welcome to ms mojo and today we're counting down our picks
00:08for so-called twin movies that have similar concepts and were released within a year or two
00:13of each other my brother let's win
00:20number 10 mirror mirror and snow white and the huntsman
00:24before disney began its live action remakes fairy tale revisionism was having a moment the story of
00:35snow white was retold in both of these 2012 movies i think it's time we change that ending no no snow
00:42you're trying to mess with trying true storytelling it's been focused group then it works just let me
00:45say open the door open the door snow released in march mirror mirror stars julia roberts as the
00:51evil queen envious of her stepdaughter's beauty more overtly comic it pokes fun at the villain's
00:57vanity look fabulous your majesty fabulous right now i haven't even begun to get ready yet well
01:03then one can only imagine how fabulous you shut up right with pleasure huntsman starring franchise
01:07fixtures christian stewart and chris hemsworth went a more violent and dramatic route leaning into the
01:14high fantasy element both movies offered something different finding success at the box office and
01:20even competing against one another for best costume design oscar then let them come let them
01:27break their skulls and these stones and bring me my prize number nine fire fraud and fire i remember
01:37just leaving this place and looking at this image of the campground for the first time feeling what
01:42an epic failure really is the 2017 fire festival which was a failure in every possible way represented
01:50a new low in unearned hype and the smoke and mirrors of social media influencing this disastrous music
01:57festival was the perfect subject for an investigative documentary there's this idea that this is the model
02:03of success the millennial era you can become the biggest buzziest company in the world where you
02:09have this moonshot vision and you figure it out later because like why couldn't you do it these
02:16duelling documentaries about the disastrous music festival also told a meta story about duelling
02:22streaming services netflix's fire had been hyped for months when it dropped on the service in january 2019
02:29hulu took a guerrilla approach releasing their version just days ahead of them with little ramp
02:34up everybody fully believed that we were going to put on an event that was going to change the
02:40landscape and deliver an experience people will talk about for years there was no hidden secret
02:44there's no hidden agenda we're all like whatever it takes we are all in and let's go and make this
02:48happen allegations of unethical methods flew back and forth between the respective teams behind them
02:54while fire got better reviews both might be essential in exploring an event that soon became
03:00legendary is it in a way um i guess a testament billy's success as being a pt barnum and literally
03:07getting people into the tent yeah he says it in the movie this will be a case study that's studied
03:12you know in the future number eight dr strange love and fail safe and the lord said gentlemen
03:18he who is without sin let him cast the first stone
03:31in the wake of the 1962 cuban missile crisis sydney lumet and stanley kubrick both made wildly different
03:39movies about a possible nuclear apocalypse fail safe remains faithful to the serious tone of its
03:45inspiration with henry fonda playing an american president trying to stop a nuclear war with the
03:50soviet union after an accidental detonation we're to blame both of us we let our machines get out of
03:57hands still it was an accident two great cities may be destroyed millions of innocent people killed what
04:07do we say to them mr chairman accidents will happen i won't accept that dr strange love is largely about
04:13the same exact thing only stanley kubrick saw so much irony and human folly in mutually assured
04:20destruction that he couldn't help but make a dark comedy hey what about major kong
04:33the similarities between them did not go unnoticed both released by columbia kubrick actually tried to
04:39sue sue saying that failsafe too closely resembled the book they had adapted
04:48you can't fight in here this is the war room number seven friends with benefits and no strings attached
04:55no relationship no emotions just sex whatever happens we stay friends swear swear swear swear
05:04in both of these modern rom-coms two friends try to balance physical intimacy with no emotional
05:10attachments it goes about as well as you'd expect why are you messing everything up
05:16that's what people do i'm uh they buy each other flowers and they go to museums and they
05:20you know me this stuff freaks me out friends with benefits stars mila kunis and justin timberlake
05:27while no strings attached features ashton kutcher and natalie portman although they
05:31both had similar success at the box office kunis and timberlake's version of the story fared much
05:37better with critics the movies shared more than a premise though mila kunis and natalie portman were
05:53just coming off the psychological horror hit black swan meanwhile portman's co-star in no strings attached
05:59is ashton kutcher kunis's former co-star on that 70s show and also her future husband you're getting
06:07married we married that's our second remarriage this one's gonna stick right yeah number six white
06:16house down and olympus has fallen it takes 15 minutes for your armed forces to reach the white house
06:21we took it down to 13. there must have been something in the water in hollywood circa 2012.
06:30around that time two separate movies about a hostile takeover of the white house went into production
06:37i got three rounds tell me you got some weapons in the residence no you usually have two agents right
06:42there with machine guns we got some knives in the kitchen what they're big knives great you can make
06:47me a sandwich white house down stars channing tatum as a capital police officer fighting back
06:53against assassins who overtake 1600s pennsylvania with a president played by jamie fox olympus has fallen
07:01sees a president played by aaron eckhart defended by jared butler's secret service agent sorry about the
07:07house sir it's okay i believe it's insured if you're wondering which one wins the white house takeover
07:17contest you might be disappointed both movies received similarly lukewarm reviews and did
07:22respectable business at the box office gentlemen we're on lockdown you can't be in here let's go
07:28i said i said we are on lockdown man gotta be kidding me movie time is over shut this down
07:34number five the matrix existence and the 13th floor i'm feeling a little disconnected from my real life
07:42kind of losing touch with the texture of it you know what i mean as more and more people engaged
07:47with the internet virtual reality and simulations became a hot sci-fi topic at the turn of the century
07:54at least three major releases explored the anxiety of living life in a simulation the matrix and its
08:00philosophical red pill blue pill drama still dominates our cultural understanding of this fear
08:05you take the blue pill the story ends you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to
08:12believe you take the red pill you stay in wonderland and i show you how deep the rabbit hole goes the
08:20underrated existence by david cronenberg is a lot weirder and even more grotesque in its story of a
08:27woman pursued through virtual reality the 13th floor yet another 1999 release about danger in simulated
08:34environments featured a simulated los angeles set in the 1930s i fell in love with you before i even met
08:41you how can you love me
08:50i'm not even real
08:54you can't fall in love with a dream all of them were worth a look but unsurprisingly the matrix is
09:00the most successful both critically and commercially neo no one has ever done anything like this
09:09that's why it's going to work number four the truman show and ed tv i i don't know about this whole 24
09:17hour tv thing y'all got going but if you are going to go forward with it this is your mess in the late
09:2490s reality tv was still in its nascent stage seen more as a dystopian oddity than a true cultural
09:30phenomenon these two movies were a response truman where are we going we know i guess i'm being
09:36spontaneous the truman show stars jim carrey as a man who experiences a spiritual crisis when he
09:43realizes he's been the unwitting star of a tv show since birth all of his family friends and neighbors are
09:50actors then who am i you are the star was nothing real you were real that's what made you so good
10:06to watch ed tv while more overtly wacky actually presents a more familiar version of what would
10:12become reality tv as its main character chooses to live his life in front of cameras 24 7. though it
10:19features a delightful performance from matthew mcconaughey it was released too soon after the
10:23truman show to have a chance with critics or audiences they got you man just go home go home gomer
10:34number three dante's peak and volcano look at this nice little town that's all snug and cozy right
10:42against the mountain yeah just like pompeii released two months apart these disaster movies pitted modern
10:48science against the awesome and destructive power of volcanic eruptions the tarpists themselves are on
10:54fire and they're right now spilling out onto wilshire boulevard it's coming right up out of the ground
10:59itself it's as if the tarp caught fire melted and somehow expanded pierce brosnan stars in dante's
11:06peak as a volcanologist sent to investigate seismic activity near a long dormant volcano in the pacific
11:13northwest volcano sees tommy lee jones having to deal with the formation of a volcano under los
11:18angeles itself it is unlikely but it is a possibility uh we have a history of that here in the downtown
11:24area patacoutine 1943 a mexican farmer sees smoke coming out of the middle of his cornfield a week
11:30later there's a volcano a thousand feet high there's no history of anything until it happens and there is
11:35although both were considered pretty mediocre volcano got slightly better reviews at the time dante's peak
11:42gets points for making more money being more scientifically accurate and having one of the most upsetting
11:47deaths in any disaster movie hang on grandma it's just another two miles to the radio station
11:53i don't think i have another two miles left in the days please it's okay
12:00oh grandma i get to stay at my mom number two ants and a bug's life haven't i seen you somewhere before
12:09well maybe and then again maybe not and then then again
12:13yeah dreamworks's bug movie was actually a leftover pitch from co-founder jeffrey katzenberg's days
12:21working for disney it focuses on an anxious ant whose individual nature goes against the community
12:27of other ants a bug's life by disney pixar features a similar storyline of an ant cast out
12:33of his colony who must save them all from predator insects you're supposed to look for bugs not dandelions
12:39you leave them alone he knows what he's doing that's right here i go for the colony and for
12:49conflict erupted between former colleagues and friends katzenberg and pixar's john lassiter and even
12:56pixar's backer tech entrepreneur steve jobs accusations of plagiarism ignited a press war
13:03dreamworks even bumped up antsy's release date to compete with a bug's life these these termites
13:09they're they're these guys are not going to put up much of a fight right i mean we're talking about
13:12pushovers right not really kid despite their rival's best efforts pixar won out their movie was simply
13:19more suited to a younger audience and the reviews and ticket sales reflected that oh this was such a bad
13:26idea you see hopper nature has a certain order before we unveil our top pick here are a few
13:33honorable mentions the illusionist and the prestige two 2006 movies about magicians and illusion set in
13:41the 19th century a real magician tries to invent something new that other magicians are going to
13:47scratch their heads over you know yeah and then you sell it to him for a small fortune right there
13:52i suppose you have such a trick mr baldner that's you i do tombstone and wyatt earp these two star
13:58studied westerns covered the famed gunfight at the okay coral we intend to disarm them and take them in
14:04doc you understand oh i understand but you think they will capote and infamous two biopics of writer
14:14truman capote were released within a year of each other it's the one experience that unites rich and
14:20poor i suppose i i'm able to to endure it because i can alchemize what wounds me into art happy feet
14:32and surfs up animated penguins were all the rage and any other skills besides surfing like what like
14:39singing and dancing yeah yeah no not me man i just surf elvis and priscilla two biopics with wildly
14:48different takes on the same relationship watch out i'm sorry baby are you okay i'm sorry baby i
15:01i got my mom a stumper yeah i'm okay before we continue be sure to subscribe to our channel and
15:07ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos you have the option to be notified for
15:12occasional videos or all of them if you're on your phone make sure you go into your settings and switch
15:17on notifications number one armageddon and deep impact all right this is the most important story
15:25of our lives let's not muck it up your preference might depend more on what you value most in a
15:30movie like this do you want scientific accuracy and human emotion or do you want to see the crash
15:36boom bang of meteor debris raining down on a city and see a bunch of rowdy guys go into space yeah i
15:42remember this one it's where the uh the coyote sat him's ass down in a slingshot and he strapped
15:48himself to an acne rocket is that is that what we're doing here no not really because it didn't
15:54work out too well for the coyote armageddon and deep impact both present two vastly different versions
15:59of the same story how do humans respond to a world ending meteor it is only prudent that we now take
16:05cautionary steps to ensure the continuation of our way of life to guarantee that there will be enough
16:12of us left to rebuild a new world in the unlikely event that the comets do strike the earth deep
16:18impact takes a shockingly real and studied approach showing the limits of our power when confronted with
16:24the cosmos armageddon is a testament to how blowing stuff up is sometimes the best answer two guesses which
16:31one made more money houston we're coming home we copy that in a contest of similar movies which gets
16:41your vote tell us in the comments it's important to know when you've been beaten yes
Recommended
11:59
|
Up next
13:10
28:57
20:43
23:59
12:48
1:20:20
12:15
29:21
12:47
14:11
10:44