Mistakes were Made is a movie starring Ryan Gosling and Love Davis. Based on a short story of the same name by Jorge Luis Borges, it has become a cult classic amongst people that like big budget movies that retain a low budget vibe.

The story tells the story of a movie that has become popular by hiding its own existence in the real world. The movie has had no official advertising or PR activities, even though the majority of the movie’s budget was supposed to be devoted to marketing denying its existence (“enough nines”, the phrase used by Borges in the story to describe the percentage of marketing spend, has now become a popular term to describe large fractions, especially in the software industry). In the absence of a movie but given its popularity, there is a flurry of high quality first copies that are supposedly indistinguishable from the original, and viewers are often left wondering if they’ve seen the original or a copy, even after having seen the movie. The situation becomes more troublesome as the short story that the movie is based on was itself rumored to not exist.

The movie was considered as a commercial success, but despite the cult-like following amongst fans, it was not well received by critics who considered the storyline to be “gimmicky and unoriginal”.

Over the last year, there have been unsubstantiated reports about a sequel being well underway. This has led to an resurgence in interest about the original, as is rumored to have been foreshadowed by Borges in the original short story, in a scene where he tells the director that:

“Any street magician can pull a rabbit out of a hat. But it takes a master to pull two rabbits out of a hat that doesn't exist.”