10 Movie "Ripoffs" That Actually Weren't
8. Phone Booth
Shortly after the first trailer for 2003's Colin Farrell-starring thriller Phone Booth was released, film fans began to note similarities to a movie released the year prior, the Wesley Snipes and Linda Fiorentino-starring thriller Liberty Stands Still.
Both films revolve around the protagonist being held hostage at a single location - a phone booth and hot dog stand respectively - while on the phone with a sniper who threatens to shoot them if they refuse to co-operate.
Though Liberty Stands Still was released over 14 months before Phone Booth, Phone Booth was actually shot first, wrapping principal photography in December 2000, an entire two months before Liberty Stands Still went before cameras.
As for why the low-budget, 81-minute Phone Booth spent almost two-and-a-half years in post-production?
Throughout 2002, a series of sniper attacks in the D.C. area - which claimed the lives of 17 people - prompted Fox to delay the film's release until the perpetrators were apprehended, which they were that October.
And so, after letting the dust settle and the news cycle move along, Phone Booth finally came out in the spring of 2003, where it was initially pilloried as a Liberty Stands Still knock-off, even if it ultimately fared much better critically and commercially.