9 Movies You Didn't Realise Are Set In The Same Universe

What do a family-friendly action-adventure film and a hyper-violent exploitation B movie have in common? Both were directed by Robert Rodriguez, and both feature a grizzled Danny Trejo playing a murder machine named Machete.

Yes, the character that helps the precocious children in Spy Kids rescue their secret agent parents (don't ask) is actually the same slice 'em-and-dice 'em, ex-Federale from the Machete series.

Although Trejo plays the character with much softer edges in the Spy Kids franchise -- so as not to infiltrate the nightmares of every boy and girl watching at home -- Antonio Banderas' in-film brother, Isador Cortez, is actually the same guy who pulls a bad guy's intestines out of his stomach and attaches them to a helicopter blade in Machete.

Granted, the fact that Banderas showed up in Machete Kills as Machete's nemesis has led some fans to believe this is an alternate universe of some kind, but the likelier scenario is that Rodriguez just wanted Banderas in his movie and didn't want to shoehorn in an entire backstory about how the brothers from Spy Kids had turned against each other.