11 Franchise Movies Where Franchise Worlds Collide

Worlds That Get Collided: Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Homecoming Big Matchup Characters: Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Lizard, Electro, Rhino, Mysterio, and three Spideys What Makes It A Good Crossover: In the span of just 15 years, Spider-Man fans got three different major movie franchises to enjoy. Everyone may differ over which Spidey is their favorite, but at the end of the day, each is lovable in their own way. The existence of multiverses in the Marvel Cinematic Universe gave the Tom Holland-led No Way Home creatives a perfect opportunity to offer closure to our favorite heroes (and villains) of each franchise. The Amazing Spider-Man films left fans at a pivotal moment in Peter's life, allowing Andrew Garfield's cameo in the third MCU Spider-Man film to illustrate what happens (and to give Peter a chance to right his greatest mistake). Meanwhile, Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man returns from the 2007 film Spider-Man 3 and sheds his black-and-white mentality regarding villains to give his foes the opportunity to do better without immediately condemning them. He's able to honor his fallen best friend in this way. Each Spider-Man has taken very different paths, and their team-up offered much more than fan service. Even better? The franchises' greatest villains have the chance to make better choices, as do all three Peters. It's a beautiful homage to all three worlds and marks the end of an era.

Worlds That Get Collided: Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, and other Marvel projects Big Matchup Characters: Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Hulk, Nick Fury, Loki What Makes It A Good Crossover: The Avengers was the make-or-break kickoff to the future of the MCU. If it didn't work, the world would've never gotten movies like Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. This 2012 team-up set the pace for over a decade of movies featuring the Avengers and their various allies. The movie seamlessly ties together multiple storylines and character arcs, while still focusing on one major villain. Everything from the chemistry of the actors to the power strengths had to be spot-on to make it work, launching the franchise into phases two and three before the big actor shake-ups led to new characters picking up beloved mantles. As it turns out, the vibes were there, and over a decade later, MCU fans are still seeing the payoff of the Avengers assembling in this blockbuster.

Worlds That Get Collided: Godzilla and Kong Big Matchup Characters: Godzilla and King Kong What Makes It A Good Crossover: Who doesn't want to see a massive dinosaur and gorilla duke it out for the championship title? Godzilla and King Kong are arguably the two most iconic and powerful movie monsters of all time. However, special effects have come a long way since these characters were introduced on the big screen in 1933 (Kong) and 1954 (Godzilla). The 2021 movie Godzilla Vs. Kong allowed filmmakers to take everything we love about these larger-than-life monsters, bringing fans an epic smackdown to truly bring their fantasy world to life. It makes great use of modern visual effects to create a vibrant, earth-shaking conflict that has viewers feeling like they've got a front seat to the destruction.

Worlds That Get Collided: Alien and Predator Big Matchup Characters: The Xenomorphs and the Yautja (Predators) What Makes It A Good Crossover: Even people who aren't sci-fi buffs are probably familiar with the image of the Xenomorph facehugger latching onto a victim. Similarly, most people can attribute the weird clicking sound in Predator to the franchise. Some movie moments supersede genres and insert themselves into the very DNA of pop culture. So, why not have these infamous creatures collide? Alien Vs. Predator makes the matchup interesting by pitting both species against much more dangerous foes than squishy humans - namely, each other. While they certainly aren't winning any hero awards, Predators are typically the side that wins fans' allegiance, since they're trying to stop the Xenomorphs before they can reproduce on Earth's surface. This mashup succeeds by shifting the perspective, as well as offering some incredible action scenes as the terrifying extraterrestrials duke it out.

Worlds That Get Collided: Ready Player One and many famous 1980s films and video games Big Matchup Characters: OASIS players and dozens of '80s franchise characters What Makes It A Good Crossover: Ready Player One is essentially the live-action movie version of every nerd's fantasy. During their experience playing in an all-encompassing virtual reality game called OASIS, the characters have the option to interact with a slew of franchises, meeting characters like Jessica Rabbit, Sonic, and even Freddy Krueger, since the creator of the world was a major geek for all '80s pop culture. With shoutouts to everything from classic Atari games to The Shining, it's an all-encompassing ode to pop culture in the form of fictional VR.

Worlds That Get Collided: Wreck-It Ralph, Star Wars, Marvel, Disney, and more Big Matchup Characters: Ralph, Vanellope, and dozens of franchise characters What Makes It A Good Crossover: It would take the entire length of the movie to list all of the franchise characters and mashups in Ralph Breaks the Internet. On some level, the Wreck-It Ralph sequel is basically a long advertisement for social media sites, websites, and franchises like Star Wars and Disney princess movies. This doesn't stop it from being extremely entertaining, though. Ralph Breaks the Internet isn't meant to be dark or deep, but allows us to poke fun at all of our favorite franchises - like a scene highlighting the formulaic nature of princess stories. During Ralph and Vanellope's quest to save her arcade game, the duo travels through the internet vortex for some iconic meta cameos that undeniably win laughs (on top of all the Disney princesses, fans will also see Sonic the Hedgehog, C-3PO, Groot, Buzz Lightyear, and many more familiar faces). It's pure, lighthearted fun, a nice change of pace to more intense, battle-focused crossover movies.

Worlds That Get Collided: Unbreakable and Split Big Matchup Characters: David Dunn, Elijah Price, Kevin Wendell Crumb, Casey Cooke What Makes It A Good Crossover: Glass is the culmination of almost 20 years of storytelling by M. Night Shyamalan, beginning with his 2000 film Unbreakable. Sometimes, the best movies come from an idea that didn't pan out - which is what happened with the creation of Split when Unbreakable didn't get the green light for a sequel. Given that Split was born out of a scrapped idea for an Unbreakable character, it was only natural that the two exist in the same world. These worlds finally collide in Glass. Fans were drawn to the culmination of the series that highlights superheroes in a more realistic manner than their cape-wearing counterparts in other genres. Glass takes that concept up a notch from both of its predecessors, highlighting a psychiatric hospital as a landscape to dive deep into the psyches of the characters while allowing the A-list actors from both franchise's rosters (Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy, and Anya Taylor-Joy) to interact.

Worlds That Get Collided: A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th Big Matchup Characters: Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees What Makes It A Good Crossover: Sometimes, slasher villains need to take a break from their regularly scheduled human torture schedules to duke it out with each other. Though Freddy Vs. Jason was ultimately fan service to bring two popular franchises together, it quickly became a cult classic. Freddy resurrects Jason in an attempt at a power grab so he can continue to creepily invade teenage dreams, but he gets more than he bargained for when Jason reacts poorly to being ordered around. Meanwhile, the humans caught in the middle devise a plan to pull Freddy into the real world and make the two villains fight each other. The 2003 movie served as an attempt to revitalize both franchises by shaking up the slasher formula. It's ultimately just a fun, chaotic love letter to horror fans, and it doesn't need to be anything more than that.

Worlds That Get Collided: Man of Steel and Batman comics Big Matchup Characters: Batman and Superman What Makes It A Good Crossover: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice actually marks Ben Affleck's first appearance as Batman in the DC Extended Universe. A crossover movie was a unique way to introduce Batman, and Affleck went on to appear in multiple future DC installments. Not everyone loved the movie, but the premise is iconic in its own right. We've seen more than a few villainous face-offs, but it's rarer to see heroes turn on each other. The battle is made all the more interesting since there's not a clear-cut hero or villain between the two. Both Superman and Batman's conflicting points of view have merit at times, and they both make dark choices and mistakes. Leaning into that gritty morality is rare for Superman stories, and this version even goes darker than some Batman movies. For the sheer cinematic intensity of the conflict, this crossover is well worth a watch, even if the plot is thin at times.

Worlds That Get Collided: The Wolfman and Frankenstein Big Matchup Characters: Frankenstein and Wolfman What Makes It A Good Crossover: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is an early monster movie mashup, having been released in 1943. Though Frankenstein has been around for many years, the crossover follows up on the version seen in 1942's The Ghost of Frankenstein, plus the title character of 1941's The Wolf Man. Of course, there's a lot of grunting and the special effects make the movie more humorous than scary these days, but any horror fan should connect with the genre's roots. While there's still plenty of monster vs. human action in the movie, it's fun to see classic movie monsters push each other around, and this was one of the first chances to see that. The black-and-white film recalls classic monster movie aesthetic, and performances by legendary monster actors Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. remain lively for fans to enjoy decades later.

Worlds That Get Collided: The Ring and The Grudge Big Matchup Characters: Sadako and Kayako What Makes It A Good Crossover: What's better than one homicidal spirit? Two homicidal spirits. The Ring's Sadako and The Grudge's Kayako are arguably two of horror's creepiest foes. So, why not throw them in a room and see what happens? The plot for this 2016 Japanese crossover film is kind of brilliant: humans pit the two supernaturals together so they'll destroy each other and leave humanity alone. Of course, the best part of this mashup is when the two ghosts literally mash together, combining into an even more terrifying entity dubbed Sadakaya, enough to give even the most dedicated horror fan nightmares.