Similar plotlines
I’m a great fan of movies. After so many years of watching films I decided to write something. One day I conceived a subject. I developed it in my mind until I decided to write it down. But, unfortunately or fortunately, I saw VANILLA SKY. My main story and character is very much like that film. Even some details are exactly the same. What would you do if you watched a movie that is very close to the story you’re writing?
–Anonymous
A philosopher who’s studied up on the nascent field of memetics might argue that people don’t actually think of ideas. The ideas are already out there, competing with each other to get people to think them.
In the case of your movie, there was an idea floating out there about a guy who was experiencing life strangely because, it turned out, he was already dead and dreaming. This idea came to you. Unfortunately, it also came to Cameron Crowe, in the form of the Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar’s movie ABRE LOS OJOS.
Back in college, I kept thinking about doing a movie or TV series about an asteroid headed for Earth. I wasn’t the first person to come across this idea. I opened the trades one day to find that ARMAGEDDON and DEEP IMPACT were suddenly racing into production. I was a little bummed, but reassured to think that at least I was capable of a commercial idea.
If you’re halfway through a script and you see a movie that is almost exactly your story, then you have fair reason to moan and cry and tear your hair out. In general, though, writers who abandon one of their projects because "it was too much like" whatever, were just looking for an easy excuse to stop writing it.
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May 25th, 2005 at 7:36 pm
Actually, even ‘Abre los Ojos’ bears an uncanny resemblance to Philip K. Dick’s ‘Ubik’, though I’ve never seen that book properly accredited as a source.
February 10th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
hey there–i was the afi screenwriting student you met last night at the wga. i loved hearing you, thanks! i didn’t get a chance to ask my question. i frequently struggle with plot. a few people have suggested finding a plot that’s similar to my story and basically ripping it off. making it just different enough but similar–similar but different. i’ve tried doing that but it gets confusing, that’s the point where i really start to see that character IS story. any thoughts? rachel
September 12th, 2006 at 8:09 am
“In general, though, writers who abandon one of their projects because “it was too much like” whatever, were just looking for an easy excuse to stop writing it.”
One thing that drives any creative person into any sort of artistic endevour is the faith they have in their idea – the deep-down conviction that its bound to “work”; its apt to capture the imagination of others (“Hey, that’s just brilliant!”) and acordingly, has the potential to earn the artist both recognition and/or hard cash.
Dont know about you but for me, the very thought that majority of people who will see my finished work will straightaway draw parrallels with something they’ve encountered before just ruins the whole gut-level excitement that got me onto the project in the first place.
Add that to the legal implications it could have and one has two good reasons to quit doing what risks becoming a poor facsmile of someone elses work.
lack of originality is the distant cousin of mediocrity
July 13th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
yes but at the same time in every great writer’s work there are undercurrents of plots and characters that have been borrowed from previous writes. Shakespeare especially was notorious for stealing plots from the likes of friends Christopher Marlow of Ben Johnson. Theres nothing wrong with building off someone else’s idea, as long as what you produce has a brilliance that you bring to it.