Twin films come along a lot more often than you think, but the summer of 2013 threw up one of the more oddly specific cases when Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen faced off against Roland Emmerich’s White House Down in the battle of blockbuster Die Hard-inspired action movies featuring badass heroes saving the president when rogue forces launch an attack on the highest office in the land.
Emmerich’s effort may have earned $35 million more at the box office than its competitor, but it also cost $70 million more to produce, so Olympus had it beat on pure profit. On a critical level the two are about neck-and-neck, with White House Down boasting a 52 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and 62 percent user rating, whereas Gerard Butler’s debut as head-stabbing neck-snapper Mike Banning landed a 50 and 66 respectively.
Of course, it’s not difficult to declare a definitive victor when fourth installment Night Has Fallen is on the way, while White House Down endures only as a guilty pleasure favorite and colossal money loser. Butler and his signature brand of gratuitously violent skills won out in the end, with Olympus Has Fallen still capable of pulling in a crowd on streaming almost a decade after release.
As per FlixPatrol, the over-the-top orgy of violence has been soaring on the iTunes most-watched chart all week. There’s a reason why the grizzled Scotsman is one of cinema’s most popular action stars, with Olympus acting as one of his signature calling cards for leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, all while completely forgetting to take names.