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30 Movies & TV Shows Inspired By None Other Than Other Movies & TV Shows

By:: Brian C. Miller; Cracked Writers

June 13, 2022

30 Movies & TV Shows Inspired By None Other Than Other Movies & TV Shows

The only thing movie nerds on forums and in comment sections love more than originality in movies is complaining that there's no originality in movies. Where are the truly new ideas? Those lightning bolt moments of brilliance that arrive in the brains of screenwriters fully formed, make it through the production process completely unhindered, and arrive in movie theater auditoriums ready to blow the minds of the film-going public.

The truth is that those don't really exist, and never have. Art is most frequently inspired by, well, other art-- Ideas that capture the imagination of the culture, refined and reprioritized into new stories. While ideally the results are so fresh and exciting that the audience doesn't realize it's basically a rip-off of something else, it doesn't make the inspirations less important to the process. In 1977 audiences had never seen anything like Star Wars… aside from the Samurai films, fairy tales, and adventure serials that they, in fact, already had.

Here are some facts about movies and TV shows that were inspired by other movies and TV shows.

30 Buried

CRACKED.COM In 2010's Buried, Ryan Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, a US citizen working in Iraq who wakes up trapped in a coffin. The entire film takes place inside the tiny casket. The film is director Rodrigo Cortés' love letter to the films of Alfred Hitchcock, using Rope's real-time aspect, Rear Windows single point of view, and Lifeboat's claustrophobia. — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

29 Inception

Christopher Nolan has said that Inception was very much inspired by the James Bond movies. — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

28 Robocop

The Robocop writer got the idea by working his a*s off on the Blade Runner set. Edward Neumeier worked in the Blade Runner art department, making garbage for the futuristic street scenes, and got to watch Ridley Scott direct the movie. After four straight nights of that, pulling shifts after his day job, the title RoboCop and the main character (in a bluish armored thing) flashed into his mind. CRACKED.COM — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

27 The Favourite

T H E FAVOURITE Director Yorgos Lanthimos was inspired by the quick back and forth bickering between Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple (1968). CRACKED.COM — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

26 The Shape of Water

The Shape of Water came about because six-year-old Guillermo del Toro didn't like a movie's ending. At six, del Toro saw the 1954 monster movie Creature From The Black Lagoon and thought the shots of the Gill-Man reaching for lead actress Julie Adams' legs were romantic and exciting. Не was sure they'd be together by the end, and was really disappointed when that didn't happen. So he decided that, some day, he needed to fix that. CRACKED.COM — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

25 The Matrix

Joel Silver said that the Wachowskis had showed him the anime Ghost in the Shell to give him an idea of what they wanted to achieve with The Matrix. - 8 12 S. 2 a a : SKO ... МЕМЕСИЯ fe Esi t n CRACKED.COM 8 for 04 — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

24 Avengers: Infinity War

Avengers: Infinity War was partly based on 1990s heist movies, it turns out. Co-director Joe Russo said that Structurally, with this first film, Avengers 3, we've been using the smash-n-grab '90s heist films, so there's a real urgency to the film. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

23 Picard

The second season of Picard was inspired by Star Trek: The Voyage Home. Akiva Goldsman said that his co-showrunner Terry Matalas suggested Hey, let's do The Voyage Home.' And we kind of dug it. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

22 Shaun of the Dead

30 Movies & TV Shows Inspired By None Other Than Other Movies & TV Shows — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

21 Midsommar

Director Ari Aster was going through a horrible breakup when he was offered to direct Midsommar. So he modeled his latest folk horror after breakup movies like Modern Romance (1981). — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

20 Hereditary

HEREDITARY Ari Aster cited the theme of family breakdown and emotional brutality in Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From A Marriage as one of the influences in his debut horror film. — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

19 LOST

Lloyd Braun, the former chairman of ABC Entertainment, got the idea for the show Lost after he watched the movie Cast Away. LOST CAST AWAY CRACKED.COM — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

18 The Eternals

DC's Man of Steel ended up directly inspired Marvel's The Eternals. The Eternal Ikaris is basically a riff on Superman, and director Chloe Zhao said that Of all modern interpretations of Superman, this is Zack Snyder's with 'Man Of Steel' which inspired me the most because he approached this myth in an authentic and very real way. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

17 The Ant-Man & The Wasp

A bunch of particular 1980s movies inspired The Ant-Man & The Wasp. Director Peyton Reed said that the ticking clock plot came directly from After Hours and Midnight Run. CRACKED. COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

16 Dune

Denis Villeneuve was specifically inspired by Star Wars Tatooine scenes for Dune. As he put it, When I saw the very first 'Star Wars' in 1977 my favorite scenes were the ones that felt the most natural. The one when we see the droids at the beginning - there was something about the strength of nature. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

15 Mr. Robot

The first season finale of the show Mr Robot was inspired by Fight Club. Fight Club was one of my big inspirations for the show, said creator Sam Esmail, and The Pixies' Where Is My Mind in S1E9 was a nod to that. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

14 Friday

ice cube chris tucker - not can go down between thursday and saturday... South Central inspired Ice Cube to write Friday because he didn't like the portrayal of the hood as violent and unsafe to live in. friday now WITH - Hir - DE BMW - I adidas Direct adidas - K200 - e en 25 - 8c DALM WOOD KICH . DE - ISSUED adidas Which unlike in the movie, from their experience was fun. A chers cheer besope any and YONKO beginn with de min 150 laber SOUTH CENTRAL - adidas HERN 18 WT 301 2010 eit DEN - — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

13 Tropic Thunder

Ben Stiller got the idea for Tropic Thunder while he was working on Empire of the Sun. A number of his castmates were getting roles in war movies, and they'd compare the work to boot camp. It inspired Stiller to wonder what would actually happen to actors in a war zone. CRACKED.COM — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

12 Dunkirk

Director Christopher Nolan wanted to create empathy in the audience towards the plight of the soldiers by focusing on visual storytelling and suspense, instead of in dialogue, in his award-winning movie DUNKIRK UN FILM DE FEDERATION - HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT To achieve this, LE DE SALAIRE LA PEUR he got YVES MONTAND inspiration from suspense masters, EXPLOSIVES especially from Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Palme L'er Cunnes 1957 Drix g Intepritation Charles Famel. Fear. — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

11 After Earth

Will Smith got the idea for AFTER EARTH from the TV show I Shouldn't Be Alive. Discovery SHOULDN'T CHANNEL 1 BE ALIVE It was originally intended to be about a father and son who have to survive after a car crash. It was then turned into a sci-fi story. CRACKED COM — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

10 Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino's movies kind of ended up inspiring Birds of Prey. Neu Director Cathy Yan said that the structure of the film was a bit like Pulp Fiction meets Rashomon. CRACKED. COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

9 Mad Men

Mad Men was partly inspired by a particular old-school French movie. The movie is Les Bonnes Femmes, and it was shot in Paris, in the era in which Mad Men takes place-and it influenced the show's production design. CRACKED. .COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

8 Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad took many, many style cues straight from The Godfather. In particular, Breaking Bad's use of color filters and different lighting schemes for different scenes, to give each one its own look and feel, is based on The Godfather. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

7 Big Trouble in Little China

Big Trouble In Little China was heavily inspired by the 1980s movie Zu. Its full name is Zu: Warriors From The Magic Mountain, and it's a Hong Kong action movie that made John Carpenter get started on Big Trouble In Little China. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

6 Gremlins

GREMLINS Director Joe Dante pored over Frank Capra's iconic It's A Wonderful Life and decided that it was the exact spirit he wanted for Gremlins; a heartwarming, magical, small town, Christmas journey, with horrible green monsters. — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

5 A Million Ways To Die In The West

GRACKED.COM MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST Seth McFarlane was watching Hang 'Em High (1968) when he began joking to his writers about how depressing it would be to live in the Wild West, where GUNT EASTWOOD everything could kill you. HANG'EMHIGH The inside joke turned into a feature film. — Source: 16 Movies That Owe Their Existence To Other Films

4 Samurai Jack

A 1960s Japanese animated movie inspired the show Samurai Jack. SAMURAI JACK It's called The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon, and Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky said it had what he wanted for that show: A lot of lighting and mood...very little dialogue, about the action, simple stories, and the character. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

3 Aquaman 2

Aquaman 2 takes its inspiration from a campy '60s Italian horror flick. The movie is Planet of the Vampires, and director James Wan said, You can take the boy out of horror, but you can never take the horror out the boy. CRACKED. .COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

2 Luca

Pixar's Luca was actually inspired by the style of Hayao Miyazaki movies. The village where the movie takes place, Portorosso, is even an homage to a Miyazaki movie - Porco Rosso. CRACKED. .COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

1 Hawkeye

Turns out, Hawkeye is inspired by, uh... Hallmark Christmas movies. I couldn't say they did not inform the Christmas of the show, a little bit. In the same way that those movies are comforting, I was reading those comics so many times, said head writer Jonathan Igla. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Inspired By Other Movies

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