Borrowed plot devices

[The Reaper Man]

Over the weekend I watched Sidney Pollack's THE YAKUZA followed by Ridley Scott's BLACK RAIN.It's easy to see where Scott got his influence.This got me to thinking,what other films have borrowed plots,partially or wholesale?
Obvious ones are THE EXORCIST/Whole list of Italian films;
WESTWORLD/THE TERMINATOR
etc,etc.....
What other titles do you reckon have done this?

[NossB]

Zinda

For fourteen years of his life, Balajeet Roy (Sanjay Dutt) was imprisoned without knowing what his crime was nor where he was. One day, he is suddenly set free and has four days to find out why he was imprisoned and why he was kept alive. So begins his quest for answers and revenge.

Can you guess which film it's ripping off?

[The Reaper Man]

Old boy.....?

[loops]

I heard Speilberg is going to remake Old Boy, please tell me thats not true!

[Peter Neal]

Sorry, I read the same rumours....

One of the most famous plot rip-offs must be "Reservoir Dogs", which is for the most part a US remake of Ringo Lam's late 80's classic "City on Fire", featuring Chow Yun Fat in the same dilemma as Tim Roth in "Dogs".

[NossB]

Originally Posted by loops

I heard Speilberg is going to remake Old Boy, please tell me thats not true!

It's not looking good:

http://www.beyondhollywood.com/smith...oldboy-remake/

[loops]

Of all the people to direct why Speilberg? If only Peckinpah was still alive.

[Matt]

I also heard about the Spielberg 'Oldboy' remake. Apparently being developed with Will Smith.

That said, they've insisted they'll just be adapting from the same source material, not remaking the current film version. Apparently the original book or comic is quite different from the film.

Which in a way is a shame. Would love to see Will Smith use a pair of scissors in the same way as the protagonist from the current film does in the end. Then we could call it even for 'Boom! Shake the Room'.

[NossB]

Originally Posted by loops

Of all the people to direct why Speilberg? If only Peckinpah was still alive.

Spielberg has apparently secured the rights to the original manga epic by Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya. While story differences between the comic and the film are slight, the manga isn’t as hardcore as Park’s film. Many of the more controversial elements, like the live octopus eating, and the incest subplot, aren’t part of the original story. So, that explains how Spielberg and Smith will tone the whole thing down for American audiences and ratings.

Source:

[eiren]

I think most of the Italian genres came about because of successful films from Hollywood (with the exception of maybe Giallo and Cannibal films, which were progressions of Krimi & Mondo films respectively) and taking those plots and expanding on them.

Poliziotteschi really took off after Dirty Harry & Serpico. All the fantasy films really took off after Conan The Barbarian. All the post-apocalyptic films came after Mad Max 1 & 2. All the supernatural horrors came after The Exorcist & The Omen. The shark films came after Jaws etc etc.

However, I don't think this was a bad thing at all... as I find many of the Italian 'rip-offs' to be a lot more entertaining than the originals (as do many of you I suspect ).