Unbroken

There's a film out soon about a World War II prisoner of war in a Japanese camp, called Unbroken.

(Not Unbreakable - completely different, no war, no prisoner, mostly Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson)

Which is notable because there was one out last year, The Railway Man, with Colin Firth as one of the men working with Alec Guinness at the River Kwai. At least, it sounded like the same situation, even if it wasn't building a bridge.

Every once in a while, Hollywood brings out a few similar films. Assertions of plagiarism come up, although in plenty of cases it's only the basic idea that's the same. Antz and A Bug's Life both have computer-animated ants, but little else in common. Dante's Peak and Volcano were both released a couple of months apart in 1997. Deep Impact tried to be a scientifically correct meteor strike movie, but let's face it: Armageddon was a lot more fun. When a couple of films like these POW ones come out, the more interesting question is "Why was an investment made in them,now? Why did someone think people would want to see them?"

Fortunately an article from the New York Times expands the question to a quartet of World War II films, including Enigma exploration The Imitation Game and single-tank-against-the-Nazis Fury.  (The former includes "advanced math" as justification for it's PG-13 rating.) It even has a simple answer, from an author of the original book used as a source for Unbroken:"It’s the last great shot for the greatest generation." Which seems likely enough.