Movie Franchises That Should Definitely Have Crossover Events

Here are our top 10 picks for movie franchise crossovers we absolutely need!

By Michileen Martin | Published

James Gunn, Marvel, DC

Whether it’s the xenomorphs of the Alien films clashing with the interstellar hunters of the Predator movies, King Kong duking it out with Godzilla, or Abbott and Costello meeting Frankenstein’s Monster; Hollywood has a long history of movie crossovers. Movie franchises have never been bigger than they are right now, with terms like “cinematic universe” being normalized by Marvel and all the studios doing their best to copy Marvel. We think it’s a perfect time for some fun crossovers between movie franchises.

Here are ten movie franchise crossovers we think absolutely need to happen.

10. Star Wars And Willow

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One man’s Force could very well be another man’s magic. As Collider remembers, this was what some more hopeful (or gullible, depending on who you ask) fans thought when the official Star Wars website “officially” made 1988’s Willow part of the narrative’s canon. This was an April Fool’s joke, but some fans still hold out hope that the world is somewhere in the vast Star Wars universe.

Why not? Of all the worlds in the “galaxy far, far away,” there could very well be a few that aren’t aware of intelligent life beside their own. What might happen if Willow (Warwick Davis) or another Nelwyn discovered a crashed X-Wing fighter in the opening of a movie crossover?

9. Alien And Blade Runner

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When it comes to the Alien franchise and movie crossovers, it’s almost always more conflicts with the hunters from the Predator films you hear about. But since we’ve already seen plenty of Alien Vs. Predator media, including two feature films, what could prove much more intriguing is a crossover between two franchises whose first films were both directed by Ridley Scott — Alien and Blade Runner. In fact, there are plenty of fans who theorize the two franchises are already part of the same universe, a theory that was all but confirmed from Easter eggs in the 2012 Alien prequel Prometheus.

It would be fitting to see a movie crossover between these two franchises, considering how integral artificial intelligence has been to the Alien films. Every single canonical Alien feature has included one synthetic life form, sometimes disguised as a human.

8. Predator And Terminator

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Would the alien hunters of the Predator movies consider artificial intelligence prey worth pursuing? That would be a question you could ask to set up a Predator/Terminator movie crossover. The cybernetic soldiers of the movies would certainly be a challenge for the Predators, but would the hunters be disappointed when ripping out their victim’s spine revealed metal rather than bone and blood?

If the movie crossover were set in the dystopian future the heroes of the Terminator movies are always trying to prevent, there would certainly be enough violence to attract them. Sure, they could hunt the human rebels rather than the machines, but that just seems too easy.

7. Deadpool And Green Lantern

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Ryan Reynolds has made no secret of how disappointed he was in 2011’s Green Lantern, even including prominent references to the flop in both of his Deadpool movies. But what if you took the worst elements of Green Lantern out and made a movie crossover between Hal Jordan and Wade Wilson, with Reynolds playing both roles?

It would have to pretty much be about 70 percent comedy, but it could be an absolutely incredible comedy. And it makes sense too. If Deadpool were active in space, he would be exactly the kind of person on the Green Lantern Corps’ most wanted list.

6. Twin Peaks And The X-Files

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While both franchises are known mostly for their presence on TV, both The X-Files and Twin Peaks found their way to the big screen. A movie crossover between these two could prove particularly fitting because both featured as their heroes eccentric FBI agents investigating paranormal events.

It would also be interesting to see how things would have happened in either series if Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) switched places. Mulder would likely have paid more attention to the supernatural lore of Twin Peaks‘ Black Lodge and so may have avoided Cooper’s fate in the original series finale. Meanwhile Cooper would likely never have been as obsessed as Mulder working for the X-Files, but likely would have been a much happier person.

5. The Avengers And Justice League

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Every few years, Marvel and DC Comics have some kind of crossover one-shot or mini series with each other, and plenty of fans have been hoping the respective cinematic universes would eventually get around to doing the same.

Could we ever see such a massive movie crossover between DC and Marvel? Nothing is impossible, of course, but there is the pretty big question of whether or not either Disney or Warner Bros. would be comfortable trusting their IPs, at least in part, with their competitors on a temporary basis. On the flipside, who wouldn’t pay to see a live-action throw-down between Superman and Thor?

4. Predator And Star Wars

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I have already made the argument that now that Disney owns both Star Wars and Predator, it should finally pit the hunters of Predator against the Ewoks of Star Wars in a movie crossover. The same movie that introduced the Ewoks — 1982’s Return of the Jedi — has already given us the perfect set-up. In the wake of the departure of C-3PO, who the Ewoks worshipped as a god, the various Ewok tribes break into a worldwide holy war, and the resulting violence is what attracts the Predator to Endor.

Clearly, the ingenuity and fierce warrior spirit of the Ewoks would make them victorious in the end. But before he fell, the hunter would collect quite a few new rugs.

3. Blade And What We Do In The Shadows

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Since Wesley Snipes made a cameo as Blade in an episode of the What We Do in the Shadows spin-off series, you might argue this crossover already happened. But the movie crossover I’m thinking of would feature a version of Blade that makes more sense: one who was hunting the vampires of What We Do in the Shadows rather than working with them.

Whether it featured only the New Zealand vampires of the 2014 What We Do in the Shadows movie, or incorporated the characters from the FX series, it would be a mockumentary about these children of the night on the run and in hiding from the Daywalker.

2. Planet Of The Apes And Star Trek

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The comics, unsurprisingly, have beaten the movies to this crossover, specifically with the 2014-15 IDW miniseries Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Directive. But that doesn’t mean we still wouldn’t want to see it on the big screen.

A movie crossover between these two franchises would be very interesting in terms of Starfleet‘s Prime Directive. That Directive would necessitate that the Trek heroes leave the primate people of this post-apocalyptic Earth be, but how could they, especially in light of them keeping human beings as slaves?

1. Spider-Man And Venom

venom tom holland

Sure, Tom Holland makes a cameo at the end of 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, but the movie crossover we’re talking about needs a lot more meat to it. Venom, after all, begins in the source material as a Spider-Man antagonist and to some fans it still remains unforgivable sacrilege that Eddie Brock becomes Venom in the movies without any involvement with Spider-Man whatsoever.

Of all the movie crossovers on this list, this one seems like the most likely to happen. If it does finally become a reality, it will likely follow the usual Marvel formula of the two starting off as enemies and eventually joining forces.