8 Lazy Movies That Were Just Copying Better Films

Making movies is hard. There's so many things to be dealing with, ranging from making sure catering are going to be able to provide a varied diet for the crew and that you have actors who can give the work the depth it requires, and something could easily go wrong.

Of course, it's very easy to take the easy route - make a product placement deal with Dominos that sees pizzas delivered to the set every day and hire Nicolas Cage. The one place you'd imagine films wouldn't skimp is in the creative department. The purpose of the whole enterprise is, after all, to make something entertaining for the audience.

Except too often an overt focus on money takes over and a film simply steals entire swathes of plot from a much better movie. Here are eight such examples of films that delivered something we'd already seen before. These aren't the famous areas of controversy, like The Hunger Games and Battle Royale or The Lion King and Kimba The White Lion, but blatant examples of shameless copying.

Honourable Mention - The Entire Mockbuster Genre

If you're talking about films riding the successes of others there needs to be a shout-out to the Asylum and their run of 'mockbusters', cheap direct-to-DVD knock-offs of currently-in-cinemas films intended to trick people into shelling out thinking it's the real thing. Transmorphers, Jack The Giant Killer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Android Cop and Atlantic Rim are a choice few that have blighted DVD shelves. Not boasting the same awareness as the studio's more shlocky outings (they're the guys behind Sharknado), there's nothing of merit here. And not that much secrecy over stealing ideas either.