I've noticed that there are multiple films that have the same title. Only difference is, one is usually a low budget lesser known film, while the other is a big budget film...and the big budget film with the same title is usually the one that gets all the praise and attention. I was always under the impression that if someone comes up with a title for a film, than it's taken, and deemed off limits for any other writer or director to use. Was I wrong?
shareI would think it's only off limits if the title contains a trademarked name, like Star Trek.
shareInteresting how a property such as Frankenstein is done. Without checking I believe that the 1931 Boris Karloff film is the only one simply titled Frankenstein just like the book. The basic story has been done over and over gain with titles such as Frankenstein : The True Story. I wonder how any Frankenstein related work relates to the estate of Mary Shelley and its heirs. Productions such as The Bride and if Universal had to give its blessing for that film which featured Jennifer Beals and Sting?
shareNow we have two Serenity movies.
shareBad Boys:
1) 1983 film with Sean Penn
2) 1995 film with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence (not to mention its 2003 sequel).
Rush (1991) and Rush (2012) ...
Crash (1996) and Crash (2004) ...
Gladiator (1992) and Gladiator (2000) ...
Notorious (1946) and Notorious (2009)
i actually just had a funny misunderstanding with the filmspotting podcast on twitter. they were making a joke about a film called leviathan, a film on which the hosts firmly differed in opinions. i took it upon myself to comment on how i really liked leviathan, & thought it was similar in some ways to the new barry jenkins film 'if beale street could talk.'
at which point one of the hosts had to nicely correct me that i was getting my leviathans mixed up - he was referring to a documentary about fishermen in massachusetts, & i was talking about an incredibly bleak russian film about a man fighting corruption in his small town.
there apparently is an film association database where producers register a film's name, & this is meant to dissuade people from repeating titles, but i don't think this holds any legal weight.
so when a film called dark city was made in the 90s, nobody stopped the producers from releasing it under that title, even though there was a film made in teh 1950s with the same title.
but you can't just go out and name a film 'star wars' or 'raiders of the lost ark,' because a court would assume that any reasonable person would expect that a film with that title would be related to a famous existing property.
not that i'm a lawyer, but i recall hearing this explained on a dvd commentary some time ago...it may have been for dark city, actually...
In 1919 and again in 1938 they made two movies called Too Much Johnson
I find this very funny:)
The Revenant (2015) and The Revenant (2009)
Ravenous (1999) and Ravenous (2017)
Hello Cinemademon989,
maybe I'm missing the point - because I'm not sure whether you are interested in
a) remakes under the same title, or rather
b) movies which have the same title but don't show the same story... I suppose this is the sort of movies which you are searching for.
Nevertheless I would like to mention just two remakes:
"The Champ" (1931) and "The Champ" (1979) - in this case we have a particularly long time span between both versions!
And here's an example showing the contrary:
"The Boy" (2015) and "The Boy" (2016)... just one year between both movies...
Last not least, here's one movie with an exceptionally high number of remakes: "Treasure Island" - 1934, 1950, 1972, 1978, 1990, etc.; I think the list on imdb has more than half a dozen items - the story is just so good that it can't ever get "played to death", I think. (And I must add - shame on me - that I haven't watched the original version, so far! The same is the case with the original "Champ"... one could almost think I had an aversion against Jackie Cooper! Heaven, no - on the contrary, I think I should buy and watch both classic movies a.s.a.p. :-)
Kind regards
Andreas (123all4me)