2 Giant Whale Movies being made Simultaneously

It's Jimbo here with some news about whales. Whale movies actually. It seems that in the tradition of Hollywood, two very similar movies are being created at the same time. This time two giant whale movies are currently in production. We already knew that Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) is directing a "Moby Dick" movie, but now it seems that Edward Zwick (Defiance, Blood Diamond, Last Samurai) is going to direct a giant whale movie based on the book of a true story called "In the Heart of the Sea," it is the account of the Nantucket whaling ship that was tracked down and destroyed by a sperm whale in the early 1820's. This is the story that inspired Moby Dick.

So I just wonder how this tends to happen in Hollywood all the damn time. Two nearly indentical movies in production simultaneously. Check out this list of movies that were released right next to one another:  Magicians: "The Prestige" and "The Illusionist". Volcanoes: "Volcano" and "Dante's Peak". Asteroids: "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon". Westerns: "Tombstone" and "Wyatt Earp". Animated bugs: "Antz" and "A Bug's Life". I know there are more but that's all I can think of. Why do you think this seems to happen so often?

So as we usually do when something like this happens, we wait to see them both then argue which one was better. My guess is Zwick's film because he is just a better director.