The Vulture Pages had a very interesting article in New York Magazine talking about the copy-cat nature of today's film industry. The piece compared several movies that were generally based on the same topic, most of which were less than a year apart. It is cool to see how the movies stacked up against each other. The composition compared the movies using overall approval rating, world wide gross and general advantages each movie had. With this data a winner was picked out of each pair of copy-cat movies.
It's strange that most of these movies take years to make, yet they all seem to come out within in a few weeks of each other. Film companies are seem to be lazy and are chasing a successful formula. For example Pixar, "A Bug's Life", and Dream Works, "Antz", were released 49 days apart. Pixar won the competition and with more then doubled Dream Works "Antz" worldwide gross.
If you've seen the movie "No Strings Attached", save yourself a few bucks and wait for "Friends With Benefits" to pop up on Netflix.