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Wednesday, December 21st, 2022 9:05 PM

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adding co-production as new title

Why's my contribution of a English TV movie rejected?  The reason given is: "potential duplicate" of a French miniseries.  My contribution is a co-production, which was concurrently made with the French miniseries.

My contribution explains that the co-production's original language was English, which wasn't overdubbed.  The English TV movie premiered on U.S. television one year after the French miniseries.  The English TV movie's running time was less than half the French miniseries'.

Although the French miniseries was critically acclaimed, reviewers rated the English TV movie poorly due to bad acting.  So it's unfair to combine reviews about the poor TV movie with those about the superior miniseries.

 

P.S. Das Boot was added as both a miniseries and a film.

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2 years ago

Generally speaking, we do not create separate pages when different versions of the same work are released as separate titles. For details please refer to the section "Can I add a different cut, edition, or version to IMDb separately?" in our "Adding a new title" documentation located at: 

https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/titles/adding-a-new-title/GNXTSSVTJTFCRZGN?ref_=helpms_helpart_inline#alternate

There are many examples of TV miniseries that are recut into a shorter theatrical version for release in select markets. For example:

The Best of Youth 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346336/


Salem's Lot

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079844/

We don't create a separate listing in those cases, since the theatrical cut is just a shortened version of the original TV program, but we do list information about the existence of the film version as an 'Alternate Version' entry on the TV series' page.

Das Boot (1981) is a different story because it was first released theatrically as a feature film in 1981 and wasn't released as a miniseries until 1985, in an expanded version that is almost twice as long. The differences between two versions justify the existence of two separate title pages. Another example is Ingmar Bergman's Fanny & Alexander (1982), which came out as a film first and then in an expanded mini-series cut one year later  

As for Les Miserables (2000), the English-language version seems to be a shorter cut of the original TV version (albeit one that features some alternate scenes shot in English rather than dubbed). As such, it doesn't seem to justify the creation of a separate page. If there's evidence that the two versions differ substantially in content (as per the criteria documented in the Help section linked above) and if enough information specific to the theatrical version is included with the submission of a new title (e.g. an exhaustive cast/crew listing that is specific to the English language cut as well as detailed information about the differences between the two versions), we will consider it for inclusion.

(edited)

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@Giancarlo_Cairella​ wrote:

As for Les Miserables (2000), the English-language version seems to be a shorter cut of the original TV version (albeit one that features some alternate scenes shot in English rather than dubbed).

The distinction between your examples and Les misérables is that the latter had concurrent productions in different original languages.  The latter's English TV movie didn't feature just "some alternate scenes shot in English rather than dubbed".  Every scene was re-shot in English, and its French miniseries was filmed in a different language.   The English TV movie wasn't edited from its French miniseries.

Das Boot (1981) is a different story because it was first released theatrically as a feature film in 1981 and wasn't released as a miniseries until 1985, in an expanded version that is almost twice as long.

Like your examples, Les misérables was first released as a French miniseries and then released as an English TV movie in the following year.  The English TV movie's running time was less than half of its French miniseries'.  Unfortunately, I'm unable to compare the French miniseries because I don't understand French.

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The fact that a film or TV show may been shot simultanously in two languages is not unique and doesn't necessarily warrant the creation of separate title pages: it was not unusual for many multinational European productions in the 60s and 70s (or, for a more recent example, see the Norwegian film Kon-Tiki (2012)). It is also still common for many Indian productions, shot simultaneously in Hindi and Tamil versions.

When a film is shot in two language versions with the same cast/script, we document this fact as an alternate version section for the title. See for example:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1613750/alternateversions

Separate title pages would be justified if a film is shot in two language versions with different language casts. The 1930 Greta Garbo film Anna Christie for example was shot simultaneously in English and German with the same star and script but different supporting casts:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020641/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020642/

Another famous example is 1931's Dracula shot simultaneously in English and Spanish with two different casts (in this case even Dracula was played by a different actor in each version):

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021814/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021815/

In the case of Les Miserables however, it seems to be simply a case of the same cast, director and crew shooting scenes in French and then in English. Unless there are notable differences between the two versions (e.g. one version substitutes different cast members for those scenes, or the script/storyline is changed), that's not a sufficient reason to have two title pages for what are essentially two language versions of the same film.

(edited)