The twin film phenomenon

Armageddon and Deep Impact. Two 1998 films about an earth-threatening asteroid. The Prestige and The Illusionist. Two 2006 dark historical dramas about magicians. 

Observe and Report and Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Two 2009 comedies about mall security. Swimming With Men and Sink or Swim. Two 2018 films about men’s synchronised swimming teams.

Both Armageddon (left) and Deep Impact (right) were released in 1989. 

It’s called the twin film phenomenon, describing two or more films – and, sometimes, two or more TV series – with strikingly similar plots released in close succession. So why has it happened since the very earliest days of cinema?

In recent years, my research has focused on the ‘why’ of film and TV production: investigating, for instance, why we get so many remakes and reboots. Or why those reboots and remakes are invariably grittier, sexier and regularly race or sex-swapped.

In my soon-to-be-released book, The Twin Film Phenomenon: The Whys of Lookalike Film and TV Productions, I have turned my attention to examining those films that arrive – completely unplanned – in pairs.

Critics and fans often favour coincidence and theft as explanations.

As a social scientist, I entered the project thinking coincidence seemed fairly ridiculous. I’ve concluded, conceding that occasionally it’s the only explanation.

Coincidence, however, is regularly sparked by the zeitgeist.

It might be coincidental that two people watched the ill-fated Fyre festival unfold on social media and had the same idea to make a documentary.

That Hulu’s Fyre Fraud and Netflix’s Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened were released four days apart is therefore sort of coincidental and sort of pretty predictable in a media environment seeking to wring hot properties dry.

Theft always seemed more likely.

Netflix’s Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (left) and Hulu’s Fyre Fraud (right) were released four days apart. 

For every successful script or novel or song there’s always someone claiming to have had the same idea ten years prior. Alas, you can’t copyright an idea – only its expression – and so, theft is regularly alleged but rarely proven.

Reality TV is rife with both twins and allegations of theft.

The moment we hear about one singing/dancing/juggling competition or a fly-on-the-wall series at the butcher/baker/pogostick-maker reality series, another identikit show is released soon after.

Formats are compulsively pilfered, allegations rarely go to court, and nobody gets deterred. Rinse, repeat.

Hence, audiences got two new global scavenger hunt shows in the same year (The Amazing Race and Lost), two car renovation shows (Pimp My Ride and Overhaulin’), two corporate competition shows (The Apprentice and The Rebel Billionaire), and dozens of other TV pairs.

It’s theft, albeit with a despondent shrug.

Just as economics explains why we have so many remakes and reboots, it also explains why we get twins.

Platforms need a constant supply of new content, and studios are keen to make films and TV with the best chance of success.

It’s why, for instance, when in the late 1980s The Abyss was announced as the new project from hot young director James Cameron, a slew of other ocean horror films were rapidly put into production, resulting in an ocean horror multi-birth comprised of DeepStar Six, Leviathan, Lords of the Deep and The Rift.

Making money is part of the story, but so too is saving it.

2018’s Sink or Swim (left) and Swimming With Men (right) both feature male synchronised swimming teams. 

When copyrights expire and stories enter the public domain, twins are often a result of two or more producers revelling in getting their mitts on a free story.

Popeye, for example, entered the public domain in 2025. Cue this year’s Popeye-themed slasher film triplets: Popeye the Slayer Man, Popeye’s Revenge and Shiver Me Timbers.

The popularity of characters like Popeye hints at another explanation for the twin film phenomenon: storytelling.

Across hundreds and hundreds of years of storytelling, audiences have demonstrated that we like certain kinds of tales and favour specific characters.

Cue three Robin Hood films in 1991, two Pinocchio films in 2022 and three Hercules films in 2014. Even James Bond appeared in two films in 1983.

My favourite explanation for these twins centres on the very personal and highly chaotic reasons for media making.

The two 1990 duelling Brazilian erotic-dance films Lambada and The Forbidden Dance were spite projects, born from the animosity between two cousins who once ran a studio together.

The cousins’ professional rise and fall, incidentally, led to their own documentary twins in 2014: The Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films and Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films.

Film and TV-making has always been a story of repetition: the earliest movies were adaptations of books, plays and fairy tales.

The first talkies and the first colour films were often remakes of black‑and‑white shorts.

The Lambada (left) and The Forbidden Dance (right) were made by sparring cousins. 

The twin phenomenon, at least in part, reflects the doubling that has always happened in media making.

But this phenomenon can also be explained by a range of other fascinating reasons spanning money to genre conventions, to fashion and fad, and occasionally even a little politics, jealousy, revenge and occasionally sabotage.

Lauren Rosewarne’s twelfth book, The Twin Film Phenomenon: The Whys of Lookalike Film and TV Productions, was published by Routledge.

This article was published by Pursuit.