If I were vacationing in Washington, D.C., this summer, I'd probably think twice about doing the White House tour.

The president's house is being targeted by terrorists again this weekend (don't say that out loud -- the NSA isn't known for its sense of humor) with the opening of "White House Down."

If it seems like you've heard this before, you have, in "Olympus Has Fallen," which was released earlier this year. Both films feature terrorist attacks against the White House, which is saved by an unlikely lone-wolf hero inside the president's digs. While the hero in "Olympus" was a disgraced Secret Service agent, the presidential savior of "White House Down" is a D.C. police officer who wants to be in the Secret Service.

This film publicity image released by Columbia Pictures shows Jamie Foxx, left, and Channing Tatum in a scene from &quot;White House Down.&quot; (AP

Obviously, these two need to talk.

This pair of similar films coming out around the same time joins the pantheon of movie twins, including "Turner & Hooch" and "K-9," "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact," "Volcano" and "Dante's Peak," Tombstone" and "Wyatt Earp," "Snow White and the Huntsman" and "Mirror Mirror," and various animated films about penguins that dance and/or surf and lions with issues who escape New York zoos.

Even before "Olympus" was released in March, some of us had already heard this one before. Fourteen years ago, Vince Flynn, who died of cancer last week at 47, wrote a book called "Transfer of Power," which introduced thriller geeks everywhere to Mitch Rapp, the CIA superspy/assassin who became the protagonist of his next 13 books. Funny enough, the plot involved terrorists attacking the White House and only being vulnerable to a single armed superstud on the inside.

These movies owe Flynn big-time.

He died just as CBS Films finally got on track with a Rapp movie, plans for which remain in play, the network told the Huffington Post. Bruce Willis reportedly has signed on to play Rapp's grumpy-but-deadly mentor, Stan Hurley. Flynn said he envisioned Willis in the role as soon as he introduced the Hurley character. Chris Hemsworth is said to be in talks to play Rapp.

Alas, they might be too late. The arrival of conjoined films usually signals the end of a subgenre. It means the market is saturated, ideas are obviously repeating themselves, and filmgoers will start to look in other directions. The evidence is already pretty strong that the thriller/spy movie genre is shriveling on the vine.

The Jason Bourne series -- which inspired me more than a decade ago to start reading Robert Ludlum novels like I was getting paid big bucks to do so -- has gone off-track since Matt Damon stopped playing the lead character. Films featuring Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan character were done in by the casting director who decided to reboot the series with Ben Affleck in the lead. The same thing happened when someone decided Lee Child fans would buy Tom Cruise playing the 6-foot-5 overpowering military policeman Jack Reacher. That series is dead after one movie.

Nelson DeMille could have scored big, had someone decided that his books featuring John Corey -- whose sense of humor makes him the most entertaining bad-ass in the spy thriller world -- would appeal to filmgoers more than "The General's Daughter," which had a plot involving rape and murder that many understandably found distasteful.

So this weekend could be the end of the spy/thriller genre for a while. Thankfully for thriller geeks, good writers are still producing good books for their loyal fan bases. It's just too bad Mitch Rapp couldn't have thwarted those White House terrorists five years ago -- it would have been fun to watch.

Contact Tony Hicks at Facebook.com/BayAreaNewsGroup.TonyHicks or Twitter.com/insertfoot.