Column Chronicles: Cheap film ripoffs - Frank Cotolo on 148.ca

Cheap film ripoffs

Frank Cotolo
November 6, 2025

When Hollywood has a big budget super hit movie that will eventually spawn a series there comes a parade of cheap imitations that border on copyright issues. Here are some of the ripoffs (with notes) from years of attempted cash-in movies.

Original hit: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

Ripoff: INTERLOPERS OF THE MISSING SARCOPHAGUS
First time film actor Wes Eastern played ILLINOIS SMITH, part-time high school gym teacher who is paid to find a stone coffin bearing a hand-written inscription by Jesus Christ warning the human race of organized religions.

Original hit: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Ripoff: NO COUNTRY FOR TWO AND A HALF MEN
Producers of the hit TV show were scripted to be the characters in this knock-off of the movie from the book by Cormac McCarthy. Because the original cast was too expensive to use its characters were played by three unknowns.

Original hit: PRETTY THINGS

Ripoff: CUTE SORTS
The script followed a mad doctor who creates human twins in his laboratory from the DNA of famous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. The two creatures display violent behavior when naked because the mad doctor accidently drooled into the Deoxyribonucleic acid in the process.

Original: CASINO

Ripoff: SIN OUT WEST
Las Vegas is depicted as a city filled with criminals and people cheating on gambling games and lawful prostitution by interlopers and washed up entertainers. The script was so realistic the production was turned into a promotional tool.

Original: SKYFALL

Ripoff: CLOUDTUMBLE
The script followed British secret agent Jeremy Stock on a mission to find a stolen list of other secret agents. The chase leads to his return to the recluse home where he grew up. There he faces combat with his arch rival, Silvertoe, who attacks Stock's family property with automatic weapons and a lawsuit. A film of the script was shot in ten days and incinerated in two hours.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.