Scott at 2012-02-09 14:20:50:

Alexis, you can almost be guaranteed that whatever idea you come up with, there has been some movie already produced that at least resembles it, if not be eerily similar. I had this come up recently when I screened It Happened One Night for my UNC class and a student wrote an analysis comparing it to the movie Leap Year, most of the major plot points identical or quite close. In other words, every story has already been told. Fortunately by and large, that matters little to Hollywood with a film industry that is geared toward prequels, sequels, remakes and ripoffs. When you come up with an idea, you have to do due diligence and research what other movies have had a similar take, especially within your genre. It would be a good idea to study those movies to give you a sense of what to avoid in terms of subject matter. There are no hard and fast rules about this. For example, when I first read about The Hangover deal getting made, about 18 months before the film came out, I thought that was one of the best high concepts I'd ever seen. It struck me as a fresh idea. Then someone reminded me of Dude, Where's My Car? with a similar premise: After a night of debauchery, guys have retrace their steps to figure out what happened and find a car. The difference was that Hangover was about the bachelor party night from hell and something about that felt unique. The reality is no matter what story concept you come up with, you will be recycling something, whether you know it or not. But as I said, since Hollywood is used to that, most of the time you'll be okay.

Debbie Moon at 2012-02-09 16:11:41:

Looking at movies being released in the next six months, I've been "beaten to the punch" twice this year already! However, I'm looking at it like this: 1) Im definitely on the right track, if the kind of ideas I'm having are selling... 2) one was written by an established writer, but the other was a spec script by a new writer. And if he can do it, so can I !