History Main / CopycatCover

* The 2022 horror movie ''The Ghosts of Monday'' has [[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13655580/mediaviewer/rm3799515393/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk a poster]] with a haunted house on the top half and the lower half of a woman's face below, very clearly imitating [[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6763664/mediaviewer/rm890600960/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk the poster]] for ''Series/TheHauntingOfHillHouse''.

* Crisps (potato chips) in the UK are generally colour-coded by flavour: red is Ready Salted, green is Cheese & Onion, blue is Salt & Vinegar, pink is Prawn Cocktail, brown is Barbecue Beef (or similar). Except for Walkers - the dominant brand - who switch green and blue... Of course, the "standard" colour coding could be considered a switch in the firsy place, because the company that came up with it in the first place (Tayto) uses red for cheese & onion and blue for salt & vinegar.

* ''Series/PrivateEye'' has a column about examples of this trope with book covers. One of the most popular covers appears to be a man in a dark coat striding dramatically away from the viewer into a winter scene.

** Likewise, ''Boo! A Madea Halloween'' had a whole slew of posters designed to homage classic horror films, such as ''[[http://www.impawards.com/2016/posters/boo_a_madea_halloween.jpg Halloween,]]' ''[[http://cdn1-www.comingsoon.net/assets/uploads/gallery/boo-a-madea-halloween/exorsisterposter.jpg The Exorcist,]]'' and ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20190410232314/https://cdn.movieweb.com/img.site/PHoB22ugGPlFru_1_l.jpg The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.]]'' Again, this was fully intentional.

** Likewise, ''Boo! A Madea Halloween'' had a whole slew of posters designed to homage classic horror films, such as ''[[http://www.impawards.com/2016/posters/boo_a_madea_halloween.jpg Halloween,]]' ''[[http://cdn1-www.comingsoon.net/assets/uploads/gallery/boo-a-madea-halloween/exorsisterposter.jpg The Exorcist,]]'' and ''[[http://cdn.movieweb.com/img.site/PHoB22ugGPlFru_1_l.jpg The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.]]'' Again, this was fully intentional.

** [[http://www.famousfix.com/post/i-can-do-bad-all-by-myself-14374052 This poster]] for ''I Can Do Bad All by Myself'' was pretty obviously modeled on the one for ''Film/StrawDogs''. This was probably an {{homage}} that people were ''meant'' to notice, though.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvengersAssemble'' has [[http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/Marvels-Avengers-Assemble-Assembly-Required/18767 a DVD cover]] that blatantly duplicates the movie poster of ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}''.

A tactic often employed by TheMockbuster. See also TrendCovers. TheBreakfastClubPosterHomage is a SubTrope.

* Hilariously, the newest DVD releases of ''Film/NearDark'' model their covers after the ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' films. Considering ''Film/NearDark'' features the more archetypal scary, violent, and unsexy vampires, Twifans could be in for quite a show if they picked this one up.
* The thriller ''Summer's Blood'', starring Creator/AshleyGreene as a woman being stalked by a family of {{serial killer}}s, had an alternate poster designed to cash in on the fact that Greene played Alice in ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''. It even received a Copycat ''Title'' in the form of ''Summer's Moon'', done in a very ''Twilight''-inspired font. Compare [[https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjdiN2FhOTctM2MyOC00ZWU1LTk2ZWMtNDkwYjFhZjExYWE3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzg3NjQyOQ@@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,676,1000_AL_.jpg the original poster]] to [[https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81vg5VYcDqL._SY445_.jpg the (pun intended) revamped one.]] Probably the most interesting part of the change was that the original {{tagline}}, "Abducted by a twisted family, will she become one of them to survive?" was cut down to just "Will she become one of them to survive?" Between the removal of the context, the new title, the change of the background from day to night (complete with full moon), the cropping out of the knife the character is holding, and the already-existing blood around her mouth, the new poster seems designed to evoke ''Twilight'', making viewers think that the movie will be about the girl deciding whether to become a vampire as opposed to a serial killer!

* Pretty much every vampire book published in the last five years has a cover that looks exactly like ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''. Even classic romance stories like ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', ''Literature/WutheringHeights'' and ''Literature/PrideAndPrejudice'' have appeared with ''Twilight''-inspired covers at some bookstores. Canadian bookstore chains Indigo, Coles, and Chapters (all owned by Indigo Books & Music Inc.) even displayed the Twilight-ified classics together during the marketing for Breaking Dawn.

* ''Anime/WhisperOfTheHeart'''s [[https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZDg0MWNmNjktMGEwZC00ZDlmLWI1MTUtMDBmNjQzMWM2NjBjXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTMxODk2OTU@._V1_.jpg theatrical poster]] is a [[https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0057/3728/3618/products/Kikisdeliveryservice_500x.jpg?v=1620238431 copycat]] of Ghibli's own prior film ''Anime/KikisDeliveryService'', encouraging the false impression that ''Whisper'' was another fantasy film about a witch of some sort.

* ''Anime/WhisperOfTheHeart'''s theatrical poster is a copycat of Ghibli's own prior film ''Anime/KikisDeliveryService'', encouraging the false impression that ''Whisper'' was another fantasy film about a witch of some sort.

* [[http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=4090&image=1 This flyer]] for the Creator/{{Konami}} arcade game ''Majū no Ōkoku'' (released as ''Dark Adventure'' in the United States and ''Devil World'' in other regions) is a blatant copycat of the poster for ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi''. Appropriately enough, the game's Franchise/IndianaJones-ripoff protagonist stands in for Creator/HarrisonFord.

* ''Film/AFutileAndStupidGesture'' imitates the layout and typography of the infamous "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Shoot This Dog" ''National Lampoon'' cover, with Creator/WillForte standing in for the dog.

* An infamous example occured with the Canadian film (the first Canadian AllCGICartoon film, at that) ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfSarila''. In America, it was marketed as ''Frozen Land'' and given a ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013''-like cover so obvious that Disney filed against them. In this case, it worked against the film because many people passed it off as a mockbuster of ''Frozen'', when the film itself was well-received. The film has nothing to do with ''Frozen'' or ''The Snow Queen''. It's actually a film about a Inuit girl living in 1910 Northern Canada.

* The posters and DVD covers for the ''WesternAnimation/{{Jimmy Neutron|BoyGenius}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' movies both show the same basic art of the protagonist and his friends in the foreground with the film's villain as an EvilOverlooker, with the only major difference being that Jimmy holds a weapon and Arnold doesn't. This was made especially evident when the movies' [=DVDs=] were reissued together as a Double Feature DVD release.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* A German company named Creator/DingoPictures makes these regularly, with badly animated knockoffs of Disney stories and even ''character designs''. A good number of these were released as [=PlayStation=] 2 [[strike:games]] [[MinigameGame minigame collections]] by the infamous Creator/PhoenixGames.

[[folder:Music]]
* The now iconic cover for the Music/{{Gorillaz}} album ''Demon Days'' was lifted straight from Music/TheBeatles' album, ''Let It Be.''
[[/folder]]

* An example that's laced with HypocriticalHumor: Nancy Stouffer, of ''Literature/TheLegendOfRahAndTheMuggles'' infamy, claimed that the name and likeness of ''Literature/HarryPotter'' were ripped off from her character "Larry Potter" (whose last name was added later to bolster the evidence for suing J.K. Rowling for plagiarism, as Rowling's lawyers discovered), and re-released the books with the title UncannyValley resident on covers so blatantly ripped off from the Bloomsbury editions of the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' novels that [[https://d1w7fb2mkkr3kw.cloudfront.net/assets/images/book/lrg/9781/5898/9781589893009.jpg they have to be seen to be believed.]]

* Pretty much every vampire book published in the last five years has a cover that looks exactly like ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''. Even classic romance stories like ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', ''Literature/WutheringHeights'' and ''Literature/PrideAndPrejudice'' have appeared with ''Twilight''-inspired covers at some bookstores.
** Canadian bookstore chains Indigo, Coles, and Chapters (all owned by Indigo Books & Music Inc.) even displayed the Twilight-ified classics together during the marketing for Breaking Dawn.

** A more crude example of the above was seen in a southern Chinese town: an early-model Mazda MX-5 from which all Mazda decals and identifying marks had been carefully removed and replaced with appropriately-located BMW symbols.

* Under homages, ''Film/MysteryDate'''s DVD release got a cover reminiscent of an Creator/AlfredHitchcock thriller such as ''Film/NorthByNorthWest''.

* Some of the artwork for the German film ''Film/TheComedianHarmonists'' (also known as ''Film/TheHarmonists'') prominently features, in addition to or even instead of the sextet whom the movie is actually about, a minor character portrayed as an expy of Liza Minnelli's character Sally Bowles from ''Film/{{Cabaret}}''. Zigzagged in that ''Film/TheComedianHarmonists'' is an excellent film in its own right.

* Some of the artwork for the German film ''Film/TheComedianHarmonists'' (also known as ''Film/TheHarmonists'') prominently features, in addition to or even instead of the sextet whom the movie is actually about, a minor character portrayed as an expy of Liza Minnelli's character Sally Bowles from ''Film/{{Cabaret}}''.

* Some of the artwork for the German film ''Film/TheComedianHarmonists'' (also known as ''Film/TheHarmonists'') prominently features, in addition to or even instead of the sextet whom the movie is actually about, a minor character portrayed as an expy of Liza Minnelli's character Sally Bowles from ''Film/Cabaret''.