Have you ever wandered through your local videostore, searching for that one title until you found it? You pick it from the shelve only to realise that it's a totally different film, only the cover looks exactly the same as the cover of the movie you came for. It happens more than you think because it's one of those marketing-tricks. Whenever a movie comes out which is a remake, they rerelease the original with a new coverdesign that is based upon the artwork of the remake. If a movie is popular, there will be without a doubt a low budget clone with a similar cover in a couple of months. A production company like Asylum lives off this strategy with titles like Transmorphers, 100 Million BC, Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls and Snakes on a Train. For a complete list and a guaranteed chuckle look here. There's also the category "spoofs", which I won't handle here as their posters are meant to be mockingly similar towards other filmposters.

And you have the fourth version; pure laziness. Why go to all the trouble of trying to reinvent the wheel as decades of moviepostermaking have given us practically instant templates for us to use? And because of that laziness the shamelessly ripping off isn't only done by small companies on low budget B-movies, it's sometimes done on movies that have multimillion dollar marketingmachines behind them. Let's take a look at some really, really lazy work by posterdesigners:

Cheaper by the dozen (2003) - Madhouse (1990)
In 1990 they used a drawing, in 2003 they used photoshop to recreate the entire drawing with actual photo's. Compared to the original it is actually pretty boring; no elephant, no chainsaw, no cat...

Ghost Ship (2002) - Death Ship (1980)
Although the movie wasn't all that good I really liked the marketing around Ghost Ship. The poster with "Sea evil" and that cool effect some posters and dvd's had where the skull (dis)appeared based of your point of view from the poster. Now ghost ship movies aren't the most original movies out there, but when looking at the cover of Death Ship I would say they could've been a little more creative. On the otherhand, Death Ship is an obscure movie which not many people have seen let alone that they are familiar with the artwork.

Head in the clouds (2004) - The Four Feathers (2002)
Two movies with no direct relation what-so-ever and both with big name casts. They didn't just use the template, they also used similar photo's. The most exciting touch on the poster for Head in the clouds is the dash of red in de bottom left corner. Wow...

The Good German (2004) - Casablanca (1942)
This is where things start getting tricky, because basically this one is a hommage. It was deliberatly done, but then again, ripoffs are also deliberatly done, it's just done in more in obscurity.

How to lose a guy in 10 days (2003) - Two Weeks Notice (2002)
Ah the romantic comedy, how do I loath thee, let me count the ways... It seems to be the easiest way out to communicate to the audience that our screencouple gets together after being rivals by putting them back-to-back on the poster and looking everything but in love to the viewer or eachother. Unfortunately for "How to lose a guy in 10 days" the poster wasn't the only thing that was copied from something else...

American Pie 2 (2001) - 10 things I hate about you (1999)
Two examples of really lazy designing; just a cast photo with a movielogo above it. Yawn. I can't be too picky of the American Pie poster being a ripoff of the 10 things I hate about you poster as it itself has been done many times before. Take the original Police Academy Poster for instance. It was drawn, but other than that the concept was the same.

Day of the Dead (2008) - Skinwalkers (2006)
Day of the Dead is already a remake, so originality isn't it's strongest suit, but that doesn't excuse it from almost completely copying the poster of another recently released horrorfilm. Both the posters breathe the same atmosphere so when you see them in a videostore you might think there were related in a sequel kind of way. Fun bit of trivia: Steve Miner who helmed Day Of The Dead, directed Friday The 13th part 2 and 3, while James Isaac, the director of Skinwalkers also directed Jason X.

100 Mile Rule (2002) - Gone In 60 Seconds (2000)
Plotwise these two movies have nothing in common, posterwise... well I rest my case!

The Beast within (1995) - The Frighteners (1996)
This is a cheat as The Beast Within is actually a videogame. Nevertheless it's cover art was shamelessly 'copied' for Peter Jackson's The Frighteners. On the other hand, The Beast Within could be well insprired by The Prodigy's Music for the Jilted Generation.

The Strangers (2008) - Funny Games (2007)
These movies deal with relatively the same material plotwise. One had more meaning to it, the other is just a horror movie. The posters aren't exact copies of each other but they look very similar; a desperate looking young woman on a black background.

They Live (1988) - Assault on precinct 13 (1976)
This is a difficult one; as you can see the posters a practically the same, just mirrored and retouched. Other than that the movies are made by the same director; John Carpenter. I don't know what happened here actually. The poster for Assault isn't the original poster from 1976 and Invasion Los Angeles, the French title for They Live, has got other posters and isn't widely known with this image. I wonder what the story is behind these images...

Halloween Camp (2003) - Halloween The Curse Of Michael Myers (1995)
Halloween Camp is a movie that's also known under the name of Bloody Murder 2, the sequel to... Bloody Murder. That movie ripped of the entire Friday The 13th franchise including having a hockeymask wearing killer. In the sequel he gets a different mask which is now a mix between Michael Myers' mask, and the Valentine Cupid mask. Apparently the designer of this movie decided to take the sleeve of Halloween VI and flip it...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) - C.H.U.D. (1984)
When I was young I loved the poster for the Turtles. It has so much atmosphere. Much better than what the DVD cover looks like... It's not so weird that these movies have similar postrers as they both deal with creatures living in the sewerswho are coming upperground, but it is pretty obvious that the more cooler looking Turtles poster is just a ripoff of C.H.U.D.

Underworld (2003) - Birds Of Prey (2002)
Birds of Prey was a TV show and this was the promoposter. This is the first and only movie in this list that rips of a TV show. You would expect the other way around. It's shameless how much the Underworld poster looks like the Birds of Prey poster and even more "frustrating" that everybody will probably say that the Birds Of Prey poster is a ripoff of Underworld... I did, before looking up the releasedates.

The Hunted (2003) - Narc (2002)
When you look at Narc you won't think for a minute that the photo was taken like that. You see immediatly that this is a montage... Who wants to copy that? Well the guy who designed the poster for The Hunted did! See how Tommy Lee and Benicio are obviously not on one and the same photograph. But if that was the only comment than it wouldn't be an obvious ripoff. Luckily the lazy designer also gave it much of the same colortones and the grungefeel. Too really make it a clear copy he even made the titles look alike. 

Far Cry (2008) - Collateral Damage (2002)
Ah, an Uwe Boll movie in this list. Wouldn't be complete without it I guess. Apart from the pose with the gun you can see the similarities; star name in the top-center, helicopters on the top-right, below the helicopers clouds of explosions, and on the left the star of the movie looking to the right in a menacing way. They just added a gun... brilliant.

Piranha (1978) - Jaws (1975)
Jaws spawned many ripoffs and it was only a matter of time before there were more underwater terror movies. In piranha they not only stole the premise and changed it from salt water killer to fresh water killers, but they also stole the whole poster concept. Only they made a piranha which is even bigger than a great white shark which is kinda dumb, especially since they're the normal sized in the movie... The woman on the poster doesn't need to worry as he's actually going after the title of the movie instead of her feet...

Great White (1981) - Jaws 2 (1978)
And there's Jaws 2!  Great succes + low budget = sequel! Part 2's poster is based upon the poster for part 1 but now with the shark popping out of the water. Nothing to write home about, but the designer for the poster of the Italian movie L'Ultimo squalo (Great White) must have thought of it as a great template for a movie nobody outside Italia would probably see, let alone the poster... I bet he didn't expect for something called the Internet to be invented and released for the general public!

Navy Seals (1990) - Red Dawn (1984)
Now this is a more tricky one because because they are not exact copies from each other but somehow I always mixed these two movies up. Let's see: red-orange-yellow background: Check! Big Blocky Title; Check! Something in the air in the background: Check! Two male leads, one holding a big gun: Check! Charlie Sheen: Check!
Both these movies are distributed by MGM, so you can even get a copy of these movies bundled together!

Confessions of a dangerous mind (2002) - Scarface (1983)
When looking at the Confessions of a dangerous mind poster it doesn't struck you as an unoriginal poster, but when put next to the poster of Scarface one can't help but notice all the similarities; the use of color, the black and white part divided by the main character. The most shocking difference is that the suit is now black and that they added a gun. Hey they also did that with Far Cry... do I smell a trend here?

Betrayed (2005) - Basic Instinct (1992)
The dvd cover for Betrayed and the one for Halloween Camp are the reasons this article exists in the first place. They made me aware of how some posters were shamelesly ripping off other posters of popular movies. Look at this example for instance. It doesn't even try to be creative, it just is a plain copy even duplicating the shadow behind the couple and the diagonal line across the page. I guess this simulates bedsheets or something...Somebody should be sueing!

Cobra (1986) - The Terminator (1984)
Again the copying is less conspicuous with these two. When apart they won't come in mind when discussing this subject, but when put next to each other the similarities can't be denied; Black dressed moviestar with a shiny muscled chest holding up a gun with his right arm while wearing a black leather glove. They both wear sunglasses and their face has the same expression. Both posters even use the colorscheme red-black extensively.

Flandres (2006) - Full Metal Jacket (1987)
The simple image of an army helmet on a white background was the poster for Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. In 2006 a posterdesigner in France probably decided to use that setup apparently for a warmovie called Flandres because when seeing the DVD cover for the first time it immediately reminded me of Full Metal Jacket.

Seven (1995) - Kiss The Girls (1997) - Double Jeopardy (1999)
This could be called a trilogy as they could be well sequels from each other by looking at the posterdesigns and casts. First we have Seven, of which this is one of many posters which was made for that movie. It's got two faces looking seriously in the camery divided by something in the middle, in this case a list of the seven sins. Kiss the girls does the same thing but replaces Brad Pitt with Ashley Judd and the list with a silhouette of a face. The poster of Double Jeopardy has Ashley Judd returning, now looking more tougher and Morgan Freeman being replaced by Tommy Lee Jones. The dividier in the middle is now a montage of a boat and a knife. 

Scream (1996) - The Faculty (1998) - I know what you did last summer (1997) - Halloween H20 (1998) and countless others...
When Scream was released in 1996 and proved to be a huge hit it was the start of a new slasherhype. The general poster of Scream didn't have all the central castmembers featured on it, an alternative one did. Every horrormovie following in Scream's footsteps seems to have taken over that concept of having all the major castmembers look worried together with the main threat (the killer) or a place (mostly schools as 99% of these movies feature teens) on the cover. These are just 10 movies I gathered, a lot of them have sequels with a cover that is also built up like this.

The Incredibles (2004) - Shrek (2001)
Pixar; so well-known for their original movies. The Incredibles was a great succes in 2004 and was the first full length 3D animation motion picture  to feature only humans instead of talking animals or other creatures. Well the poster for this movie is not so original as it is a basic copy of the poster for Shrek. The same month The Incredibles was released this little yellow sponge also had his movie in cinema: