The Mockbuster: coming soon to bargain bin near you - in pictures

Battleship – a Hollywood leviathan, set for worldwide launch this month – is not to be confused with American Battleship, which (save the date) comes out on DVD on 22 May. But just so there is no confusion, Universal Studios are currently suing the makers of the mockbuster. This, no doubt, will be the mother of all legal battles, in which the big guns are wheeled out, the sea runs red, and men come home as heroes Photograph: Public Domain

Ask anyone who came of age in the 1980s and they will tell you that Hobgoblins was a lavish Spielberg production in which a band of vandalous creatures wreaked havoc on smalltown USA, whereas Gremlins was a Johnny-come-lately knock-off. Or maybe it was the other way around. Already this is getting confusing Photograph: Public Domain

First there was Snakes on a Plane, a gilded piece of masterpiece theatre in which the great Samuel L Jackson battled snakes on a plane. Then there was Snakes on a Train, a super-saver discount version that presumably paved the way for Snakes in a Car and Frog in Your Bike Basket Photograph: Public Domain

Surely no blockbuster has spawned quite so many B-movie rip-offs as Star Wars (which was, let's not forget, something of a rip-off itself). Here's Star Crash, a self-styled 'space adventure for all time' that Christopher Plummer must be eager to scrub from his resume Photograph: Public Domain

The poster for The Da Vinci Treasure copies The Da Vinci Code so slavishly that it becomes oddly poignant. This, it implies, is what Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou will look like when their travails are over. Him: balding and haunted. Her: nervy and stubbled and sporting an unflattering woollen hat. Only Mona remains unchanged Photograph: Public Domain

Quietly, cunningly, C Thomas Howell appears to have cornered the market as the mockbusters star-of-choice. Fresh(ish) from his role as Bald Tom Hanks (or Wool-Hat Tautou), the actor crops up again as Bald Keanu Reeves, the action-hero mainstay of The Day the Earth Sat Down
Photograph: Public Domain

Only a churl would complain about the retelling of a retelling of a Norse myth that has been around for at least a thousand years. Even so The Almighty Thor demonstrates a brazen hubris, suggesting that Thor is 'mightier' than Marvel's, and garnishing him with a bigger hammer too Photograph: Public Domain

Fans of the Transformer movies should look away now. It transpires that some crass B-movie producer has taken their original film, with its nuanced human drama and crisp political allegory, and converted it into a tinny, tacky yarn about robot monsters from outer-space. For shame Photograph: Public Domain

Good news for parents who worried that High School Musical was a shade too wild, wanton and Godless to show to their offspring. Sunday School Musical offers a Christian rock spin in the tweenie franchise and perhaps finds room for a dancing Jesus who turns the water into soda-pop. Though obviously we're guessing here Photograph: Public Domain

Back in 2009 the world's cinema-goers were famously befuddled by a Pixar film called "Up" that seemed, mystifyingly, to be about balloons and a house and an old man. Thank heavens, then, for the subsequent mockbuster that put all this confusion to rest. "What's Up," the title asks rhetorically before providing us with the answer: "Balloon to the rescue!". The rest, of course, is history Photograph: Public Domain