Jennifer Lawrence and Sex Tape: Movies With Weird Real-Life Coincidences

A woman uploads private and potentially compromising content to the “cloud”, only for it to end up on the internet, much to their dismay.

No, we’re not talking about the hack that resulted in nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence hitting the internet, we’re talking about the plot of Cameron Diaz’s new comedy ‘Sex Tape’, which in a weird coincidence, is hitting cinemas on Wednesday.

This isn’t the first time the release of a film has strangely coincided with real-life events. Conspiracy or coincidence? You decide.

'The Monuments Men'

Late in 2013, when Sony Pictures was preparing for the release of George Clooney’s WW2 caper ‘The Monuments Men’, news broke that around 1,500 pieces of art stolen by the Nazis had been recovered from a Munich apartment. The thriller, which also starred Matt Damon and Bill Murray, told the true story of a team of American soldiers tasked with rescuing and preserving important art stolen the Nazis as the second World War came to an end in Europe.

The art had been amassed by a German art dealer who had been tasked selling the artworks that Hitler had deemed “degenerate”, but instead, he’d kept them for himself. The dealer had apparently even dealt with the real-life Monuments Men when they returned art to him in 1950. Spooky.

“You could not ask for a more timely, topical or relevant discovery that corresponds to the events depicted in our upcoming film,” said Sony Pictures spokesman Steve Elzer.

'Noah'

Britain was battered by the weather last winter, with the Met Office blaming “an exceptional run of winter storms, culminating in serious coastal damage and widespread, persistent flooding.” This biblical weather lasted right through to March and the States even endured a similar run of wet weather, which all weirdly coincided with the release of Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Noah’.

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In a final twist of serendipity, a screening of ‘Noah’ was actually cancelled in Exeter because – you guessed it – the cinema had flooded. See also: The release of ‘Into The Storm’ last week while Britain was struck by wet weather.

‘Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom’

This biopic of Nelson Mandela’s incredible life story had been in development since the release of his autobiography in 1995, but it took 18 years for the project to come together. Unfortunately, the South African hero never got to see the film which starred Idris Elba in the title role as he fell ill before the film’s release.

The news of Mandela’s death aged 95 broke while the film was premiering in London in December last year. The film’s producer and star took to the stage as the credits rolled to inform the audience, which included Mandela’s two daughters Zindzi and Zenani and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, of his passing.

'The China Syndrome’

This classic 1979 thriller, starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas, told the story of a journalist who uncovers safety cover-ups at a nuclear power plant. The “China Syndrome” of the title refers to a “worst case scenario” for nuclear meltdown where reactor components melt through their containment structures “all the way to China” (the Antipodean equivalent of Australia to the United States).

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Twelve days after the film was released, a partial nuclear meltdown happened at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactors in Pennsylvania, which would end up being the worst accident in US nuclear power plant history.

‘Wag The Dog’

Barry Levinson’s acerbic black comedy hit cinemas in 1997 a month before the outbreak of the Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky scandal. The films sees a Washington spin doctor, played by Robert De Niro, trying to bury a Presidential sex scandal by creating a fake war with Albania.

OK, so we didn’t get a fake war in real life, but we did have the first public sex scandal involving a US President in office. Art imitating life imitating art.

‘Wall Street’

Oliver Stone’s ‘Platoon’ follow-up was a scathing indictment on the greed of stockbrokers but he could never have predicted the real-life Wall Street scandal that hit the papers just months before the film’s release. In October 1987, stock markets around the world suffered a devastating crash, in what would come to be known as “Black Monday”.

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This threw a spotlight onto the greed and corruption rife amongst Wall Street traders and a week after the film was released in December, a Gordon Gekko-like figure named Ivan Boesky was sentencing and fined for insider trading. Busted.

'Gone Baby Gone’

Ben Affleck’s directorial debut tells the story of a pair of private investigators (one played by Affleck’s brother Casey) who are trying to track down a young girl abducted from her family. Originally slated to be released in the UK in December 2007, the film was pushed back to June 2008 due to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a British child who disappeared while her family was on holiday in Portugal.

The film was similarly delayed in Malaysia due to the similarities to another child abduction that happened at the same time.

Image credit: Sony Pictures/Paramount/20th Century Fox/Press Association/Rex Features