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White House Down vs. Olympus Has Fallen

Every few years or so we're treated to a unique Hollywood phenomenon - total movie plagiarism - with one film coming out a nearly complete replica of another within a year or so.  Now, this doesn't include films produced by the Asylum, which bases their entire business model on copycat productions (you might recall Abraham Lincoln versus the Zombies [an Aslyum pic] coming out just after Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer which by the way came out just before Lincoln - Lincoln had a bad year in 2012).

  


No, in today's post we're addressing the major studios going head to head trying to copy each other verbatim. We'll do that by conducting a shoot-off between White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen while reminiscing about great copycat moments of the past. Now, there's another category of copycatting as well - that is copying great Foreign films and pretending they're American - we won't forget that today either.

First, we need to establish that plagiarism did in fact occur between the two movies somehow - now you might complain the following information represents spoilers - however in this case one movie was in fact a spoiler for the other...

Plot ElementWhite House DownOlympus Has Fallen
Secret Service HeroChanning TatumGerard Butler
Secret Service TraitorJames WoodsDylan McDermott
Cute Kid the the White HouseTatum's DaughterPresident's Son
Irrelevant Wife 1Travelling First LadyDead First Lady
Irrelevant Wife 2Divorced bimbo momER nurse wife
Bad GuysRight WingNutsNorth Koreans
Initial AssaultJanitorial Explosion CongressHercules Gunship Whitehouse Assault
Goofy Vice PresidentSome guy who gets blown upSome guy who gets shot
Speaker of the House / PresidentEvil bald guyMorgan Freeman
Black President (Obamaman)Jamie FoxxMorgan Freeman
Ineffective Rescue AttemptDelta Team FX Helicopter AssaultSeal Team FX Helicoptor
Nuclear AnnilationBlowing up the MiddleEastBlowing up the US
The PEOCmuch smaller roompretty cool room
Comc ReliefThe Tour GuideThe whole movie?
Secret Service subplotCan't get hired Stuck on a desk after letting Irrelevant wife 1 plunge to her death
Wiping out the Secret ServiceNot so many 100's are shot en masse
Blowing up the White Houseaverted by flag waving cute kidindecisive Morgan Freeman, although half of the white house does blow up
Evil Genius HackerLincoln's sidekick from Vampire Killer movieSexy evil korean hacker babes
Gratitous head smashingprovided by tour guide using an antiqueGerard Butler uses Lincoln's bust (poor Abe just can't get any relief)
Gratitous head stabbingn/aThis is a Gerard only thing
Secret inside the whitehouse communicationsSecret service phone, handheldPresident's Satphone, with Blue tooth headset
Presidential Limo anticsLawn job in the rose gardendriving off a bridge near camp David
Near World Collapseeveryone with nukes plus middle eastditto
Cabinet ExecutionsRed Shirt SyndromeRed Shirt Syndrome



White House Down
budget 150 million
$205,358,737

Now there were other similarities as well, including the main Secret Service character's military background etc. But you get the picture or pictures. If you visit the wikipedia pages for each film you'll note that each spec script was purchased in March of 2012 (more or less the exact same time). There's no mention of whose script came first although the hint might the guy who got paid more - the one for White House Down earned $3 million. One gets the impression that someone else looked at the first script and decided - hey let's copy this entire concept and sell it to another studio. Another clue is that the second movie (or copycat) spent less than half as much money on their version (Olympus Has Fallen) and threw in some less than stellar leads (Aaron Eckhart and Gerard Butler as opposed to Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx).

But things don't always work out that way. Back in the early 1990's you might recall the movie Tombstone came out before Wyatt Earp and for less money yet it scored more int he box office. It turns out that Kevin Costner was involved in the original project that became Tombstone but decided to make another version on his own (a bloated, super-expensive 3 hour movie that no one watched and led to his eventual downfall as Hollywood guru).



Olympus Has Fallen
Budget $70 million
$161,025,640

Also, in the 90's we were treated to an Asteroid Duel; Armageddon versus Deep Impact, and a volcano shoot-out; "Dante's Peak versus Volcano." On the kiddie movie side of things we got Antz versus a Bugs Life. In the 2000's we got the Illusionist versus the Prestige. And let's not forget the foreign ripoffs with The Grudge, The Ring, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Hunger Games (yes it's a ripoff - check out Battle Royale - a Japanese flick made before [in 2000] the Hunger Games books came out [first one published in 2008]).

So getting back to the original question; which one was better - White House Down or Olympus Has Fallen. In our humble opinion, after watching one right after the other (on pay per view last night) we'd have to say White House Down was more entertaining on several levels:

  • Channing Tatum's performance had more depth to it.
  • The cute kid in White House Down did a great job.
  • There was more fun and humor in the action scenes, Olympus was pretty grim.
  • James Woods - need we say more.
  • There was the flag waving versus the flag falling (something we should have included in the table above) - the waving was cheerful versus the falling one being a bit somber.

Neither was particularly believable but that's ok - entertaining will do. But seriously, doesn't anyone get an F for cheating in Hollywood???


Copyright 2013, Raving Reviews


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