Ever been beat to the punch with a great idea?

[attatt]

Last year while writing a comic book I had what I thought was a great idea: half-human creatures using cloning technology to grow humans for food. Since they had basically eaten everything in sight, the last few people had to be preserved and genetically cloned in order to keep the food supply going.
Low and behold, several months later Marvel released an issue of their comic Marvel Zombies where this was being done in an alternate reality. Then, last month I go see Daybreakers and find the same idea employed in the movie by starving vampires.
Dammit! I guess great minds think alike, and who knows, maybe this was already written in one of the million bad sci-fi books out there.

Have any of you ever had this experience? I have to think this happens constantly and must crush people who have publishing or production deals in place. No one wants to be known as a copycat

[Don777]

attatt,

I feel your pain. This has happened to me more than once. My support group of fellow writers tell me that it's a good sign but somehow it doesn't feel that way, especially if you've already written the script.

[darrenm]

This has indeed happened to me. I wouldn't put it as a great idea, necessarily, but I still think it was among the best things I've ever written.

I was writing a comedy about a man with testicular cancer -- yes, I realize that's not typically a laughing matter, but I felt I did it in a very respectful and appropriate manner -- and then I read this. The more I looked into it, the more I realized it was very similar to my idea, and so I stopped writing it. The world isn't big enough for two cancer comedies -- at least not at this time!

[zampana]

Yup I've been working on a story about Krampus, the dark santa. Even had it outlined and ready to start drafting, when I found out almost exactly the same story was being developed at Disney by a couple writers from the Simpsons. Thankfully I found out before starting actual writing but still... :-( It was a great story!

[aimeej]

I hate that feeling. I've had it happen twice, and both times I kicked myself. But it reminds me that if I don't write it now, someone else will later.

[nason]

It's happenned to me on several ideas... sadly, one was a completed spec.

[chilldivine]

Yep, twice - once, an actress who had been involved in a development workshop of a TV idea called a few months later to congratulate me when she was called in to audition for what appeared to be the same idea further developed... except I didn't write that one! She got the part & is now a successful British TV actress, so I suppose it worked out well for one of us

It is a good lesson not to let ideas kick around in your brain for too long, I've definitely been guilty of that in the past. That said, as was discussed in another thread, it's all down to execution so unless it's the same page-for-page, you might find you're able to use your idea after all (maybe once some time has gone by) particularly once you've seen what worked or didn't about the version that got produced!

[trellicktower]

I created a pilot in 2003 that is similar to Eastbound & Down. Not identical mind you, and my show could still exist, but a few minor changes would probably have to be made. (Not including the major re-write it needs of course! As my first ever project the writing is horrendous in parts. But I still believe the story and concept are solid.)

[tous]

Actually, that's my initial reaction. As if it were some type of race. I feel like ideas are just floating in the air somewhere waiting to be plucked. There's so many ideas in history or movements that came about roughly at the same time. There's also that experiment-- with people, a control group and another group doing the newspaper crossword puzzle of the hardest one (a sunday?) but the experimental group were doing last Sunday's (did not do it prior) -So it showed that because everyone in America pretty much did it, they knew more answers than the control group who were doing the same difficulty but of the current Sunday.

Anyways, it all just comes down to Ego. But it's a terrible feeling HUgh.

[scottmyers]

If you entertain aspirations of writing mainstream movies and you've been focusing on developing story concepts in that area, then you have to be prepared to open the trades on any given morning and see that someone has 'stolen' your idea.

The only way to deal with this is either (A) you choose not to write mainstream screenplays, but go after off-beat / indie films or (B) you generate so many ideas that you're able to shove off the one you lost (when someone else came up with it) and move onto the next one.

As that great sage Bruce Hornsby wrote, "It's just the way it is..."

Or as someone in Hwood once told me, "There are only so many good ideas."

[tellis73]

Happened to me a few times. Just recently, I was watching "The Incredibles" on the Disney Channel and they aired this trailer for one of their upcoming tv movies which was an idea that I came up with two years ago, even with the same title. Now it wasn't necessarily the greatest of ideas, but heck I came up with it TWO YEARS AGO!

I stewed for a minute, but was reconciled with the fact that my ideas are marketable. I just need to execute them.