An Odd Sorta Deja Vu

Last Friday, Liz and I were at the theater to watch the Illusionist, and prior to seeing the movie and after the barrage of ads, there were a few previews. When one of the previews began to air, an odd feeling came over me and many others in the theater. One that you usually don't experience, and quite frankly is hard to describe, it's the hey, isn't this preview for the movie we're gonna see? Liz and I even had to ask each other if we were in the right theater. The preview was for the The Prestige, another film based on illusionists in a bygone era. It's not unusual for similar films to come out around the same time, though often studios try to prevent such things, such as the delayed release of First Daughter owing to its similarities to Chasing Liberty. Both bombed. Other times a movie is rewritten (allegedly Die Hard 3 had to be rewriten as it was to be like Under Siege) or simply cancelled (the Baz Luhrmann Alexander the Great film). Then, you have movies that are simply remakes (usually a foreign film was the original), such as La Femme Nikita becoming Point of No Return, Ju-on becoming The Grudge or Insomnia becoming Insomnia. Lastly, you have different versions of the same film, such as the two prequels of the Exorcist--Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist and Exorcist: The Beginning. Anyway, it was an odd feeling, and I ended up enjoying The Illusionist, and I'm looking forward to The Prestige.