A mockbuster, also known as knockbuster, is a film created to exploit the publicity of another major motion picture with a similar title or subject. Mockbusters are often made with a low budget and quick production to maximize profits. The term is a portmanteau of the words "mock" or "knock" and "blockbuster".
Unlike films produced to capitalize on the popularity of a recent release by adopting similar genres or storytelling elements, mockbusters are generally produced concurrently with upcoming films and released direct-to-video around the time the film they are inspired by is released. A mockbuster may be similar enough in title or packaging that consumers confuse it with the actual film it mimics. These attempts are notorious for their plagiarism which have resulted in successful infringement lawsuits. However, their producers maintain that they are simply offering additional products for consumers who want to watch more films in the same subgenres.
History Mockbusters have a long history in Hollywood and elsewhere. For example, the 1959 Vanwick film The Monster of Piedras Blancas was a clear derivative of Creature from the Black Lagoon, complete with a creature suit by the same designer, Jack Kevan. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman spawned Village of the Giants, and The Land That Time Forgot spawned Legend of Dinosaurs & Monster Birds.
Such films fit the B movie model, being produced on a small budget and derivative of the target film and other similar projects. The lower costs of using modern video and computer graphics equipment and the tie-in to the mainstream film's advertising have allowed the mockbuster to become a profitable niche in the home video market. Blockbuster, once the largest DVD rental chain, implied support to the concept by buying 100,000 copies of The Asylum's version of War of the Worlds during the theatrical opening week of Steven Spielberg's film based on the same novel starring Tom Cruise.
Most mockbusters capitalize on the popularity of theatrically released films, but some are derivative of a TV series. The 1979 film Angels Revenge bore many superficial similarities to the popular TV series Charlie's Angels; its promotional materials even resembled Charlie's Angels''' graphic style. In reverse, Glen A. Larson was accused of producing mockbusters at the height of his career, with his television series plagiarizing popular films of the time (Battlestar Galactica, for example, capitalized on the popularity of Star Wars, while Alias Smith and Jones was a take on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).
Blaxploitation films In blaxploitation filmmaking, it was a common practice to title blaxploitation films after previously successful films starring predominantly white casts, and produce similarly titled films starring predominantly African American casts, as observed in the films Black Shampoo (1976, after Shampoo), Black Lolita (1975, after Lolita) and The Black Godfather (1974, after The Godfather). This would arguably also include blaxploitation renditions of classic horror stories, such as Blacula (1974) and Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976).
GoodTimes Entertainment GoodTimes Entertainment was notorious for distributing animated "mockbuster" counterparts to popular Disney films in the 1990s (such as those made by Golden Films); because Disney was creating its films based on public domain folk tales and historical stories, GoodTimes' actions were legal and survived Disney's legal challenge against it.
The company would eventually become bankrupt and in September 2005, was absorbed into Gaiam (now known as Gaia Inc.).
Vídeo Brinquedo Similarly, Vídeo Brinquedo is a Brazilian CGI animation studio that, in 1998, began to produce low-budget direct-to-video films that are for the most part knockoffs of films from Pixar and Disney. Their films include the Little Cars (Pixar's Cars), What’s Up: Balloon To The Rescue! (Pixar's Up), Tiny Robots (Pixar's WALL-E), and Ratatoing (Pixar’s Ratatouille)).
In every case, Vídeo Brinquedo's knockoff has been released close to the release date of the more professional, higher-budgeted film that inspired it.
Dingo Pictures Dingo Pictures was a German animation company founded in 1992 by musician Ludwig Ickert (March 30, 1944–November 14, 2019) and book author Roswitha Haas (January 28, 1940–December 8, 2015), and based in Friedrichsdorf. They created traditionally-animated films based on fairy tales and concepts similar to those used by Disney, Pixar, Don Bluth Productions, and DreamWorks. These cartoons are characterized by low-budget animation (produced with Deluxe PaintCRT Challenges and Animation Constraints, Dingo Pictures Documentary, January 27, 2024.), small voice casts, stock music, and character designs that are very similar to equivalent characters in more high-profile films. All their films have been released direct-to-video in Germany in their original languages, and were also dubbed into other languages, notably Swedish and Italian. European game publishers Phoenix Games and Midas Games released some of them in the early 2000s on home video consoles PlayStation and PlayStation 2. These releases were developed by The Code Monkeys and included the film, as well as a small collection of minigames. Phoenix Games declared bankruptcy on August 3, 2010. On March 27, 2012, the bankruptcy was suspended due to a lack of income. Since 2012, the studio has gained popularity through reviews of their films on YouTube and Internet memes.
Following the deaths of Haas on December 8, 2015 and Ickert on November 14, 2019, their relatives inherited the studio and its equipment. On May 26, 2021, the independent label Vier Sterne Deluxe Records announced that it was negotiating with the current owners of Dingo Pictures to release the films as radio plays; the new CEOs, Simon Bohnsack and Josef "Jimmy" Roederer, also had plans to make new films and a documentary behind the studio. In August 2021, the first radio play, Wabuu der freche Waschbär (Wabuu the Cheeky Raccoon), was released.
Other The 2011 film Aliens vs. Avatars was named to market it as a crossover to Alien and Avatar, even though the latter two films have no connection outside of director James Cameron. The film follows the intergalactic battle between a quarrelsome alien race and shape-shifting extraterrestrials, while six college friends find themselves in the middle of the interstellar war.
A 1993 science fiction horror film titled Carnosaur, produced by Roger Corman and starring Diane Ladd as a mad scientist who plans to recreate dinosaurs and destroy humanity, is loosely based on the 1984 novel of the same name by John Brosnan, but the two have little in common. It was released by New Horizons Picture Corp two weeks before the blockbuster Jurassic Park. Carnosaur may be considered a mockbuster. (Diane Ladd's daughter Laura Dern starred in Jurassic Park)In some cases, the knockoff film may bear little or no resemblance to the original. In 2012, Super K – The Movie, an Indian fantasy/science-fiction animated film about an artificially created boy named "Super Kloud" with superpowers, was released direct-to-video in the United States as Kiara the Brave. Its title and cover art focused on an incidental female character with red hair, in an attempt to evoke the design of Brave's protagonist Merida, despite the fact that Kiara was a minor character in the movie, because Super K is not a mockbuster.
In other cases, the knockoff film simply renames an already existing film into a name that is similar to a popular film. For example, when Phase 4 Films acquired the US distribution rights to The Legend of Sarila, the company renamed the film to Frozen Land to cash in on Disney's 2013 film, Frozen, complete with a logo that was made to look similar to the official logo to the film. In another case, a collection of animated shorts from the 1990s animated series, Britannica's Tales Around the World, was rereleased under the name Tiny Robots by Brightspark to cash in on Disney and Pixar's 2008 film, WALL-E. Brightspark also rereleased the film The Adventures of Scamper the Penguin under the name "Tappy Feet: The Adventures of Scamper" to cash in on Happy Feet.
The Asylum CEO David Michael Latt responds to criticisms about loose plot lines by stating that "We don't have spies at the studios. We have a general sense of what the film is and we make our movie completely original, just based on that concept".
Mockbusters are low budget, and their revenue is based entirely on the sales of their DVDs. Low budgets also mean that directors need to think of creative yet cheap ways to achieve the endings that they desire. For example, Snakes on a Train capitalized on the Internet hype surrounding Snakes on a Plane. Consumers wanted what they saw. Latt said, "With only four days left of shooting my partner called and said everyone is really excited about Snakes on a Train, but they're more excited about the poster, which showed a snake swallowing a train. It was meant to be, you know, metaphorical. But the buyers wanted it, so I was given the mandate that the ending had to have the snake eat the train." At the same time, another representative of Asylum, David Rimawi, says that while a handful of their films do have "artistic elements", that's just not something they're concerned with. The Asylum does not claim to be an "artsy" production house.
Released by The Asylum in 2015, Avengers Grimm is a mockbuster hybrid of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Once Upon a Time. Released in 2018, Tomb Invader is a mockbuster based on the Tomb Raider series.
In 2026 The Asylum released New Toy Story—a mockbuster based on the Toy Story franchise—ahead of Toy Story 5. New Toy Story was the studio's first film made primarily using generative AI, which led to controversy and criticism for its visuals.
Soundalike titling
Mockbusters often use a title with a similar-sounding name to the mainstream feature it intends to piggy-back upon. Astor Pictures compiled a collection of early Bing Crosby short films to create Road to Hollywood, a mockbuster of Paramount Pictures' Road to... buddy comedies that featured Crosby with Bob Hope.
The 2006 mockbuster Snakes on a Train, made by mockbuster studio The Asylum, traded on the publicity surrounding the theatrically released Snakes on a Plane. The Asylum has also released The Land That Time Forgot (2009), Transmorphers, AVH: Alien vs. Hunter, The Da Vinci Treasure, Battle of Los Angeles, Atlantic Rim, and Paranormal Entity.
Foreign knockoffs and illegitimate sequels Mockbusters and ripoffs can be filmed and released outside of the original films' countries. Low-budget studios in foreign countries may produce illegitimate sequels to preexisting higher budgeted films series that began in other countries. These sequels are unofficial, and often even unknown to the creators and producers of the original films. These unofficial sequels are rarely, or never, released in the original country, usually due to licensing issues. In other cases, a film released in other countries is renamed as a sequel to another film in contrast to the original title.
Two Italian directors directed unofficial sequels to George A. Romero's 1978 Dawn of the Dead: Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 sold itself as the sequel to that film (which was called Zombi in Italy), and even used a line originally written for Dawn of the Dead. In a similar, more infamous Italian example, the 1990 goblin-themed Troll 2 was hastily marketed as a sequel to Troll.