8 Cinematic Universes That Existed Before Marvel's

4. Blade Runner/Soldier

With only a few descriptive words and a suggestive Vangelis score, Blade Runner manages to make create a galactic landscape as fleshed out as any other world in sci-fi; Rutger Hauer's "Tears in Rain" soliloquy is a masterful, evocative speech that, among its many other elements of brilliance, plants in your head places like the Shoulder of Orion and the Tanhauser Gate, despite that being the only time we ever hear of them. Well, no quite. You see, Blade Runner isn't the only movie set in the universe of replicants and institutionalised origami. In 1998 Paul W. S. Anderson made a generic, incredibly forgettable sci-fi actioner starring an Escape From LA-era Kurt Russell that would be nothing more than a footnote by now if it wasn't for one key element: it features a spinner and references the Tannhauser Gate, placing it firmly in Blade Runner's world. The movies shared screenwriters (proving even masters aren't above inconsistency), and was conceived as a "spin-off sidequel", which is obscure enough a follow on to said to be building a wider world. That's not the only time Blade Runner's world has been potentially expanded. Promotional material for Prometheus also included references to the Tyrell Corporation, which would seem to displace Predator as the crossover franchise of choice for Alien, although given the timeline of those movies (Blade Runner is set in 2019), meaning this is likely just an easter egg. Although who knows what Blade Runner 2, due in 2018, will do to expand the universe.