The Art Of The Perfect Crossover Movie

5. The Crossover Has To Feel Natural

Avengers Justice League
20th Century Fox

While the sheer insanity of nonsensically throwing together two vastly different properties can have a certain sense of appeal to some curious souls, the more standard approach to making a successful crossover is by pursuing a meeting of two properties for which it seems plausible that they would inhabit the same universe.

To pull a crossover off to a high standard, the coming together of two parties needs to feel completely natural and sensical.

Something like Alien vs. Predator, or Freddy vs. Jason worked well, with both individual properties of those respective movies having a similar feel to them - making it acceptable to audiences that realistically these franchises could exist within the same space. Also, there'd already been pre-crossover seeds in both cases - Predator 2 seeing a Xenomorph skull mounted as a trophy, and Jason Goes to Hell's final shot seeing Freddy Krueger's iconic glove making an appearance.

It's one thing for a crossover to feel natural, yet it's another matter entirely as to whether the crossover itself is actually constructed in a way that delivers an appeasing final product. Particularly, the two Alien vs. Predator movies have some major flaws, despite the two properties feeling like a natural fit together.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.