You Think Only Bollywood Copies? Here Are 13 Famous Hollywood Movies Which Were Copied Too!

Hollywood movies that are copied

If you thought ripping off original movies from Hollywood was the domain of Bollywood, you are wrong.

Because Hollywood copies a lot too. The only difference is that Hollywood copies from movies that are not famous. And they add on to the concept with their own ‘originality’. But it doesn’t take away the fact that Hollywood blatantly copies too. Some of the movies have glaring similarities with the original movie they ripped it off from.

So, before we badmouth Bollywood for being copycats, let’s acknowledge that Hollywood does the same.

Readers, for your consideration –

1. The Magnificient Seven – Seven Samurai

The Magnificient Seven is known as one of the classics of Hollywood. It is a direct adaptation of the Japanese masterpiece Seven Samurai made by the genius Akira Kurosawa. The original Japanese movie is still respected in all film circles for its authenticity and originality.

Compared to the original, the Hollywood version scores a hit because of all the theatricalities – stars, larger than life action and memorable dialogs. Not to mention The Magnificient Seven has a higher budget.

Fun fact – Sholay’s premise is very similar to both these movies.

 

2. Star Wars – The Hidden Fortress

Geoge Lucas admitted it himself that he copied it from The Hidden Fortress. But instead of making a western classic out of it, he went for the science fiction angle. And voila! Star Wars was born! Like the other Kurosawa movies, the original is a story based on poor peasants who are fighting an evil feudal lord.

Lucas replaced the evil lord with Lord Vader and the poor peasant with Luke and we had Star Wars.

 

3. ET – The Alien

Many in India know that Stephen Speilberg lifted off ET from the Satyajit Ray movie The Alien. The premise of both the movies is the same – an alien befriends a kid in a small town and starts an adventure.

The only problem was that Ray never got the budget for his film and it was never made. And Steven Speilberg denied ever knowing Ray, much less knowing his script of The Alien.

 

4. The Hunger Games – Battle Royale

Again a Japanese movie ripped off. Anyone who has seen Battle Royale can see ts obvious similarities with The Hunger Games. In both the movies, untrained teenagers are put in a situation where they have to kill each other to survive and the whole situation is choreographed by the main villain who can control the outcome.

The only difference is that The Hunger Games went for the dystopian backstory so that it would not look like a glaring copy of the original Japanese movie.

 

5. Home Alone – Game Over

A resourceful kid alone in a house. Check.
Christmas eve. Check.
Fights burglars in innovative ways. Check.

The original was a French movie that became a cult hit. The only difference is that Game Over was a violent movie in the respect that there was no funny angle inside it. Just one year after it became a hit Hollywood decided to make a funny and toned down version of Game Over.

And that’s how we got Home Alone.

 

6. The Lion King – Kimba The White Lion

While everyone thinks that The Lion King is an animated adaptation of the Shakespeare classic Hamlet, it heavily copied its visual scenes from the Japanese cartoon series Kimba The White Lion.

There are glaring ripoffs from the original that just cannot be mere coincidence. We are saying this because the makers of The Lion King denied that they ripped the Japanese cartoon.

We’ll let you decide.

 

7. Reservoir Dogs – Lung fu fong wan (City on Fire)

Quentin Tarantino is widely respected among filmgoers for his original screenplays. But with Reservoir Dogs, one of his earlier movies, you can see many ‘influences’ from the Chinese movie City on Fire. The star of the original movie is Chow Yun Fat – an actor most movie buffs can recognize. The Mexican standoff, the iconic scene at the start where the heroes are walking towards the camera in their crisp suits is also lifted.

The movie is so heavily influenced that it influenced another short film named Who Do You Think You’re Fooling? which compared the similar scenes from both the movies.

 

8. Inception – the Dream Of A Lifetime and Paprika

While we associate Christopher Nolan for producing innovative and original themes in his movies, he admitted to have been inspired by the Japanese anime Paprika. Both the movies used dreams as a way into breaking into people’s minds.

And if the obvious was not enough, a Donald Duck cartoon named The Dream of A Lifetime showed Donald inside Scrooge’s dream trying to know the secret of his money bin – that’s exactly what Cobb tries to do in Inception – corporate espionage.

 

9. Finding Nemo – Pierrot Le Poisson Clown

French author Franck Le Calvez created this animated children’s book way back in 1995. The only problem was that he got it printed in 2000 which was after Finding Nemo went into production.

Result – Finding Nemo is original.

Is it, though?

 

10. The Matrix – Doctor Who, Ghost In The Shell

The Wachowski Brothers literally walked into the WB studio with a copy of Ghost In The Shell and said that they wanted to make a movie just like it. In the end, The Matrix had a rich backstory but they still took a lot of themes from Ghost in the Shell.

In addition to the anime, it seems they got the name of the movie from the Doctor Who episode where the doctor gets trapped in a computer program named the Matrix.

 

11. Alien – The Planet Of Vampires

While the production design was very original, the plot is directly lifted off an Italian movie The Planet Of Vampires. In the Italian movie too, a spacecraft crashes on a strange planet and the planet’s inhabitants are dangerous and hunt the humans in the same way Aliens do.

But the artwork and monster design were so original in Alien that no one would even dare say that it was a knock off.

 

12. Black Swan – Perfect Blue

If you replace the ballet dancer with a pop star, bang, you get the Japanese anime Perfect blue. In the anime too, the protagonist becomes paranoid after unreal incidents in her life and starts questioning her sanity.

Not just the visuals and themes, apparently the names of both the protagonists is very similar – Mima and Nina.

 

13. Pacific Rim – Neon Genesis Evangelion

In Neon Genesis Evangelion the hero uses his mind to control a huge robot fistfights alien monsters. Also, he starts to blossom a relationship with his co-pilot who is a quiet and withdrawn girl.

Pacific Rim? You bet.

Just because they do it subtly, doesn’t mean they don’t do it!

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