8 Movies You Won't Believe Are Set In The Same Universe

8. Machete & Spy Kids

Machete is essentially what Danny Trejo gets up to on his days off; not only are there likely to be an enormous amount of sequels in the Machete series, but you just need to look at the behemoth of cragged Mexican manliness to figure out that he probably doesn't have to try too hard to put on the Machete facade. The character first showed up in the 2001 one family espionage flick, Spy Kids, as the estranged uncle of the eponymous heroes, and brother to their father, Antonio Banderas' character. In the movie, he is largely a subplot character and is scarcely seen, though it is revealed that he runs a spy gadget shop, and feels bitter and disenchanted (or Trejoed) towards his brother due to a tumultuous past. His role in the two sequels which followed is even less prominent than in the first, and was thought by many to have been little more than a throwaway character. That was, however, until the fake trailer by Robert Rodriguez turned up in the Grindhouse project in 2007. The trailer depicted Danny Trejo as a Mexican federale, training for a revenge mission against the man who tried to have him killed... by raising an army of machete-wielding Mexicans. Rodriguez liked his project so much that he went ahead and made a full on film of the thing in 2010, in true Grindhouse style, and it was beautifully violent and ridiculous. Thanks to the cult popularity it received, it was immediately granted a sequel, and people enjoyed that one to the point where we all temporarily forgot that we don't talk about Mel Gibson anymore, because he was pretty good in it too. So what's the link? Rodriguez was also the director of Spy Kids, and not only was the character always intended to be portrayed by Trejo, but that he wanted to turn him into the "Mexican Jean-Claude Van Damme," putting him in a movie of his own every year, but simply had not gotten round to it. So the first project in which Machete could be included was as a bit-part in Spy Kids. So there you have it, the tough loner of an uncle the kids have in the Spy Kids movies is in fact the very same ruthless killing machine seen in the Machete franchise.