Is Hollywood even trying anymore? For years, we have seen terrible sequels and redundant remakes. These movies are like Hugh Heffner’s fiances: hot, vapid, and moneygrubbing. To many, sequels and remakes are the biggest problems with the industry because they blatantly lack originality. However, a greater problem has presented itself: intellectual property theft.

Recently, Director Antoine Fuqua’s “Olympus Has Fallen” came to theatres and the film is an adaptation of Vince Flynn’s best-selling thriller “Transfer of Power.” Unlike most films based on books, no credit was given to Flynn, something Flynn acknowledged to his Facebook followers saying, “It is very difficult to prove where a producer, director or screenwriter gets an idea, or to prove how their ideas may have been inspired. It is exceptionally difficult to prove in court, costs lots of time and money and usually amounts to a great deal of frustration.” Basically, Flynn knows that his ideas were stolen but also knows it will cost a boatload in legal fees to prove in court.

When I saw this post, I had to see the movie to see if Fuqua really stole my favorite author’s idea. I think he did. 

The similarities were too striking to be coincidence. In both the book and the movie the protagonist is a tip-of-the-spear, tough guy. In the book, Mitch Rapp is molded into a terrorist-tracking assassin after his girlfriend’s murder in the Lockerbie bombing. In the movie, Mike Banning — played by Gerard Butler — is the president’s best Secret Service agent. After Banning saves the president but loses the president’s wife in a car accident, he leaves the service only to come back and save the president again, essentially making up for not saving his wife as well. 

Character similarities are merely the foundation. In both mediums, the most-wanted terrorists in the world slyly infiltrate the White House, and then attack it. They take the president hostage and publicly execute high-ranking government officials. With the president unable to fulfill his duties, power is shifted to the vice president in the book, and the secretary of state in the movie.

(Trailer voice): In a world where the most-powerful man in the world is taken hostage, one man — Mitch Rapp/Mike Banning — comes to the rescue.

Rapp uses a secret security contact to gain knowledge to the secret paths and passages ways in the White House to get to and secure the president. In the movie, Banning uses his 

Secret Service training to do the same. The back routes in both the book and movie are vital to the story because that is how each protagonist saves the president and the damsel in distress. Sure the damsel is the president’s son in the movie and a bootylicious Big Ten volleyball player in the book, but let’s not split hairs.

Of course, like most action movies, the protagonist saves the day — a similarity that I won’t chalk up to theft. However, if you give the book a read and watch the movie, you will see that each frame of the film seemingly matches the pages of the book.

This film was the perfect example of what is wrong with Hollywood: recycling ideas. Only this time, proper credit was due and the father of the idea wasn’t involved in the process.

Some may think that the early bird gets the worm, but Flynn has been trying to make a Mitch Rapp movie for years. In interviews, Flynn has cited numerous reasons as to why he hasn’t made the jump to the silver screen: studio politics and trouble finding an American actor to play a hero that is hired to wantonly assassinate international terrorists (hey Vince, if you a need a chiseled, 20-something American to play Rapp, call me).

The worst part is that Fuqua was, at one time, signed on to direct the first true adaptation of a Flynn book to the silver screen. You can imagine that the director of “Training Day” would do his homework on an author whose story he would adapt to film. Furthermore, Gerard Butler was on the short list to play Rapp for the aforementioned adaptation. Fishy.

If I have learned one thing through my time as a sports reporter at The Daily Illini, it is that every single person has a compelling story. Hollywood should take note and find interesting narratives instead of stealing ideas, and if they do, we should hold them accountable. 

Moviegoers should resist Hollywood’s cheap pandering and apparent plagiarism and demand quality films. If we don’t, the studios will keep pumping out sequels that are as appealing as wet garbage, or even worse, they will dilute your favorite stories by cutting the author from the filmmaking process completely. 

Some of the best movies that I have seen recently have not come from the bastion of carbon copies, but from France. Films like “La Haine,” “MR 73” and “A Prophet” all explore contemporary social dilemmas in the European nation and they are produced and directed in an entertaining way.

If intellectual property proceedings in “The Social Network” are accurate, I don’t blame Flynn for trying to avoid the headache, but for the sake of his art and the industry, it would be worth it. 

I can only hope that theft of this nature won’t be as pervasive as Hollywood’s bad sequels and remakes.

Patrick is a senior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected].