PICK A UNIVERSE
THE LATEST … THE LORD OF THE RINGS OR TOLKIEN VERSE
We’ve all binge watched a television series, but have you ever binge watched a MOVIE Series.
I have… well I’m going to.
Shared Movie Universes are the latest Hollywood Money Making rage, and I am going to go through them…
ALL OF THEM
But before I do let’s setup some rules:
Rule # 1: What constitutes a Shared Movie Universe? – A Shared Movie Universe, consists of a series of movies that share either the same characters, locations or just an over all “world” with other movies. These movies are usually sequels but in the last few years movie studios have tried to milk more money out their franchises, and have been giving side characters or relatives of characters, or characters only mentioned in passing their own movies and sometimes own franchises. And with that BIG BANG… Movie UNIVERSES have been created.
Rule # 2: No Trilogies – For our purposes a Shared Movie Universe consists of 4 movies 
with the same characters or set in the movie world. I decided not to include trilogies because most trilogies are three acts of the same story, usually with a beginning, a middle and an end. A movie universe is bigger than just one story. Also honestly if 3 movies make a universe, that’s a LOT more movies to watch. I have a lot of time, but not THAT much time. I’m sorry if that takes your favorite trilogy out of the running but it takes out some of mine too, The Godfather Trilogy, The Dark Knight Trilogy, The Smokey and The Bandit Trilogy and on and on and on…
Rule #3: The Robocop Rule – A trilogy and reboot, while technically 4 films do not 
constitute a shared universe and fall under The Robocop Rule. Technically yes, there are FOUR Robocop movies. But the 3 from the 80’s and 90’s count technically as a trilogy, and the fourth from 2014 a is reboot and re-tells the original 80’s story. It does not continue or expand the universe.
Rule #4: The “Worf” Rule (TV Doesn’t Count) – 
Television series while a part of many movie universes do not count as part of the Shared Movie Universe. This is because with the rarest exception, you do not need to watch 3 seasons of Agents of Shield or 100 episodes of Star Wars Clone Wars to enjoy the next movie in a film series. If anything the movies contradict many of the TV shows. How many Star Trek Next Generation movies, was Worf on the Enterprise instead of Deep Space Nine, with almost no explanation. (How’s that for a deep cut, nerds?) Also the site is called “Share MOVIE Universe” not “Shared Movie and TV and Video Game and Book Universe”. But mostly the reason they are not included is I don’t have 100 hours to watch 100 episodes of a TV show between two movies. If you want the TV shows added go to sharedTVshowuniverse.com.
Rule 5: The Order – For the most part I want to try and watch the Universe’s story from beginning to end, so 
I usually watch the movies in order of release. While most movie universes are pretty straight forward with the first film being the first part of the movie universe, there are some exceptions, like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. For those, the movie universe is well known enough to be able to watch the prequels first then all the movies that follow. And while there are some exceptions where a prequel is actually a sequel like Mad Max or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the best way is to start is with the film that sets up the movie universe and all its rules and then proceed to the movies that came after. Just imagine watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them first and then the Harry Potter movies, the whole thing would not make a lot of sense.
Rule #6: The Home Alone Rule – In order to be considered part of the Shared Movie Universe, all the 
films have to have been released in the theaters. Direct to video films do not count and fall under the Home Alone Rule. Yes there are five Home Alone movies, but only two were released in the theaters. The other three were direct to video or made for TV movies (See Rule 4) that don’t continue the story. They were just cheaply made movies about kids left someplace with criminals after them, called “Home Alone” with a number slapped behind it. That’s it.
SHARED MOVIE UNIVERSE 