14 Unexpected Inspirations and Influences Behind Our Favorite Movies and Shows

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14 Unexpected Inspirations and Influences Behind Our Favorite Movies and Shows

Movies would get boring and repetitive if people who make, say, superhero films only took their inspiration from other superhero films. Yeah, we can hear the cynics saying that that’s already happening -- but we’re not cynical ourselves (today), and we acknowledge that movies and TV have a wider variety of influences that we tend to imagine, sometimes verging on the positively surprising…

The Office

THE OFFICE was heavily influenced by THE SOPRANOS. The Sopranos was actually the biggest influence on The Office, actor and producer B. J. Novak has said. The way Michael Scott will say something very serious but mispronounce a word I feel is a direct descendant of the Tony Soprano sense of humor.

Source: Yahoo

James Bond

James Bond's 007 came a bus. After author lan Fleming moved to Kent in the 1950s, he would often travel back to London by bus - specifically, the 007 bus. It still runs today, and is very popular with Bond fans.

Source: MyLondon

Spider-Man: Homecoming

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING takes cues from Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa's High and Low served as a model for the Vulture as a ground-level villain and his relationship to Tony Stark - as producer Amy Pascal put it, somebody who looks up at a wealthy person almost in a tower ... and feels the need to respond to that in a villainous way.

Source: SlashFilm

Black Panther

BLACK PANTHER took inspiration from THE GODFATHER. a man's Ryan father Coogler dies, and suddenly he has to step into realized that this position of power was pretty much a summary of The Godfather - so he watched all the Godfather films, taking notes.

Source: Esquire

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

E.T. was inspired by Steven Spielberg's imaginary friend. The film is partly autobiographical - when Spielberg's parents got a divorce, he made up an imaginary friend to deal with that. Except that in the movie, the friend is an actual alien.

Source: Best in Film

DuckTales

The DUCKTALES reboot was influenced by X-MEN. Showrunners Matt Youngberg and Francisco Angones have said they took cues from Chris Claremont's X-Men comics, with their self- contained stories that feed an ongoing narrative.

Source: Vulture

The Purge

THE PURGE was inspired by road rage. Director James DeMonaco and his wife were almost killed by a drunk driver once. She was so blindingly mad at the guy, she said, Wouldn't it be great if we could have one free one a year?

Source: Den of Geek

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