10 "New" Movies That Just Ended Up Ripping Things Off

5. Coco Attempts To One-Up The Book Of Life

When Pixar began the marketing push for their new movie Coco, many took umbrage with the fact that the movie's focus on Mexico's Day of the Dead festival seemed to be hewing close to the 2014 Guillermo del Toro-produced animation The Book of Life.

The stylistic and thematic similarities were deemed significant enough on the basis of Coco's first trailer that The Book of Life fans began protesting Coco's release online.

While the film isn't out in most territories yet, Variety's review serves as a damning indictment of just how much Coco seems to owe to its similarly-themed predecessor.

Variety said, "Though undeniably gorgeous, none of this feels terribly original, from the film’s message to the look of the Mexican underworld, which so recently inspired another computer-animated feature, 2014’s 'The Book of Life.' A bit too close to that toon for comfort, 'Coco' feels like Unkrich and his story team...watched 'The Book of Life' and thought, 'Hey, we’ve got a better idea!' or 'We can fix this!' and proceeded to make their own Día de Muertos movie."

That's not to say that two movies about a major cultural event can't exist in the same space, but it's clear that Pixar hasn't done enough to distinguish their latest animation from its cult predecessor.