As writers, we’re constantly expected to come up with ‘the next big thing’. Something new, something original, something fresh. The question ‘what’s new about your script’ sometimes stops me writing; the anxiety that I’m just going to subconsciously re-cycle old stories and be labelled a fraud is irrationally consuming. When gripped by it, my first instinct is to research. From watching movies and TV shows by writers or directors that I aspire to, it’s become increasingly obvious that re-telling is the whole point. There is no completely original story.

This is a bold statement, so let me demonstrate with the best two examples I can find. These two films are are mirror images of one another, only they have ‘swapped the senses’: Bird Box (2018) and A Quiet Place (2018).

Before I dive in, if you haven’t seen these films yet then read no further as I will be divulging a large number of spoilers

Similarities

First, let’s look at what these two films have in common.

Genre: Horror/Thriller.

Setting: Apocalyptic World.

Main Characters: Lioness mother, resourceful father (father figure), two children (one boy, one girl).

Release Date: 2018.

Though Bird Box begins with the arrival of the apocalypse and A Quiet Place opens on a family living several years into the apocalypse, they both establish the threat of the antagonist by showing a tragic death and what it is that allows this monster to cause harm. Both films’ timelines are set over a matter of years, emphasizing the rigorous training required to survive this new world and to show the extensive planning needed for upcoming events.

The two films have scenes and set-ups that we’ve come to expect from a post-apocalyptic narrative: a room for surveillance with a character researching the monster, a dangerous game of Supermarket Sweep, tragic deaths, survival training, and a highly vulnerable character: the pregnant woman. Yes, in both movies, at a point of high tension and extremely high stakes, the woman goes into labor.

As the drama of each story intensifies, the father or father figure gets injured in an attempt to save his loved ones and soon after sacrifices himself to the monster, allowing his family to escape the danger.  And, by the end of the films, one character’s disability is discovered to be the antagonist’s weakness, allowing the protagonists to either defeat the monster or learn to live alongside it.

These are by no means the entire list of similarities these films share; some other details and scenes are eerily identical, down to the due date of the babies. I urge you to watch them both see how many more comparisons you can make.

Differences

There are a few aspects that set these films apart. The first is how we enter the story world. In Bird Box we see our lead protagonist experience the beginning of the end; she walks into the outbreak of Armageddon. In A Quiet Place, we see a family successfully surviving in the midst of the apocalypse.

Although Bird Box deals largely with a single family’s struggle for survival - the mother, father figure, and two kids - we also have an ensemble cast in the flashback scenes. These characters add an extra level of threat to the story as they begin to turn on one another through grief, anger, greed, or becoming ‘possessed’ by the unseen antagonist. In A Quiet Place, we follow our family of four through the entire plot of the movie with only one extra character, the old man who commits suicide when we see that his wife has passed away. I believe Bird Box needed a bigger cast is because of the nature of the antagonist and how it claimed its victims.

This brings me to another main difference between the films. We never actually see the ‘monster’ in Bird Box, but with A Quiet Place, we get to view the monster on several occasions. The antagonist in Bird Box is never truly revealed to us in a physical form. It has no voice, no body, and can only cause harm if a living being is to look outside where this mysterious force resides. Therefore the physicality of the ‘monster’ is somewhat limited.

As extended periods of pandemic-enforced isolation have taught us, staying inside is more achievable than we may have first thought. Therefore, as audience members, we begin to question the believability of the character's situation and how difficult it really is to just ‘stay inside’. This is where, as a screenwriter, you need to create extremely difficult situations for your protagonist. Having an intangible antagonist that can’t enter your home means the audience can’t grasp the danger or threat they pose. So, what can you do to solve this issue? You embody the monster: you give them lackeys or you allow them to possess other characters. If the main villain is not physically present, then they need to find new vassals to do their bidding — for example, in Star Wars, if Darth Vader isn’t there to fight then the stormtroopers will be.

In Bird Box, the writer has centred a heroic protagonist among highly emotional strangers who are more susceptible to becoming possessed by this monster. Now that the antagonist can adopt a human form, we finally get to witness for ourselves the risk and consequences. Not only does our leading lady have to survive an apocalypse while pregnant, she must also constantly negotiate with stressed strangers that could at any time become possessed murderers. How’s that for high stakes!

In A Quiet Place, the stakes remain elevated throughout because of how the monster operates — make the slightest sound and you’ll be hunted down within seconds and eaten. The characters are in constant danger. If you were lucky enough to watch this film in theatres, then you know how still and silent the auditorium was. No one dared to cough, chew, rustle, or even breathe too loudly.

For this reason, we didn’t need to add any more characters or any more forms of antagonism. And finally, the obvious major difference, the films have simply swapped the senses: sight for sound.

Twin Films

Bird Box and A Quiet Place are not the only two oddly similar films to be released in the same year. Cast your minds back to Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached (2011), A Bugs Life and Antz (1998), or White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen (2013). Surely no coincidence? In fact, there’s a name for this Hollywood phenomenon where two separate production companies release almost identical films within the same year: ‘twin films’.

There’s speculation within the industry around why this happens:

1. Producers make movies that are in line with the trends or social themes of the day.  

2. A writer sends several scripts to a range of companies. Ideas from these scrips are *ahem* borrowed and find form in other writers’ work.

3. Release schedule ‘bunching’ means that one studio will quickly follow up another in order to avoid their similar projects being labelled derivative or out of date.

So, I hear you ask, what is the secret to make my script different from all the rest?

Well, that would be down to the perspective from which your story is told. Who is your character? Have we heard their version of events? Why is your telling of this story the one we need to see now? What is it that makes this character’s point of view new and interesting to the same audiences?  

Consider these similar narratives, differentiated only through setting, tone and perspective:

• Taken and Finding Nemo. A single father’s child is abducted and leads to him going on a dangerous journey to save their kid.

• Big and 13 Going On 30. A child wishes to be older and wakes up in an adult’s body, they must go on a journey of self-discovery until they can turn back to normal again. (Compare these two transformational clips from Big and 13 Going On 30 to see just how closely these two projects mirror each other.)

• Avatar and Pocahontas. A peaceful group of natives is exploited by invaders from an outside world. A man and woman from their respected groups fall in love and work together to stop the trespassers.

Remember that audiences need some familiarity with their originality. We all have a preferred genre, aa favorite trope, or a special love for a certain type of character, and we need to have these familiar elements so that we can easily establish what is going on in a short amount of time – a kind of cinematic shorthand. No one is asking you to re-invent the wheel. Consider, as one final example, the works of William Shakespeare. The only playwright who, according to the New York Times, can ‘take credit for having no less than five of his plays simultaneously appearing on Broadway.’ These stories have been rehashed countless times to be set in other time periods, include even more gender-swapping than was originally imagined, and are even re-made as musicals. We all love the classics for a reason!

Katie Blackwell holds an MA in Screenwriting and works as a freelance writer.