Movie Characters You Never Knew Were Related

Well before Marvel Studios built an empire around interconnected stories and brought the phrase 'shared universe' into the pop culture lexicon, writer-director Quentin Tarantino mapped out the details of many of his movies took place in one of two universes. Honestly, you could fill an entire list like this out using only his movies. And while some of the connections are more obvious than others (such as criminally minded brothers Vic and Vincent Vega, from his debut and sophomore efforts, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction), some are more subtle.

One of the best is the father-son team of the baseball-bat-wielding Nazi hunter Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) and his son, Lee Donowitz (Saul Rubinek), a blustery, drug-loving movie producer. Despite the shared surname, this one might be easy to miss, since Lee Donowitz was introduced in 1993's True Romance (which was written by Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott). Once you realize the connection, you can see the resemblance: both men were filled to the brim with rage (Donnie's more justifiable, but still) and both went down fighting in a hail of blood and bullets.

Writer-director Roger Avary was an early collaborator with Quentin Tarantino, co-writing the breakout 1994 hit Pulp Fiction, so it only makes sense that he too would enjoy exploring fictionalized universes for interesting character connections.

Similarly, the novelist Bret Easton Ellis tends to set most of his books in the same universe. So, when in 2003 Avary adapted The Rules of Attraction, Ellis's 1987 novel about debauchery at a wealthy liberal arts college, he was eager to keep a scene from the book where the main character, sociopathic drug dealer Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek), has a tense phone call with his older brother, who just happens to be rich Wall Street broker and deranged serial killer Patrick Bateman, the main character from Ellis' American Psycho.

Avary went so far as to ask Christian Bale, who starred in the 2000 adaptation of that book, to reprise the role, but unfortunately the actor turned him down. Caspar Van Deen ended up playing the part, although the scene ended up on the cutting room floor.

Something must have been in the water that all the hip '90s indie filmmakers were drinking, because like his peers Tarantino, Rodriguez, and Avary, Kevin Smith was also obsessed with mapping out an entire universe for his films (and subsequently comic books, TV shows, and more). In the case of the Askewniverse (named after Smith's View Askew production company), two of his most memorable characters happen to be cousins: the smart aleck slacker convenience store clerk Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) and equally mouthy comic book nerd Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee).

The connection is never acknowledged outright, but it is hinted at via a third connection. Both men, who serve as the sidekicks in their respective films, tell stories about the sexual misadventures of a certain cousin named Walter. Given the similarities between the actions of the Walter at the center of both stories, as well as the similarities between Randal and Brodie's personalities, it's all but taken for granted that the two are cousins.

There are a number of familial connections throughout the various films in the sprawling X-Men franchise, but most of them have been spelled out by the screenwriters at this point. One that hasn't, however, is the relationship between X-Men team leader Scott Summers, a.k.a. Cyclops (played by James Mardsen and Ty Sheridan) and his time-traveling supersoldier son from the future, Cable (Josh Brolin).

This is a connection that fans of the comics have been aware of for decades, but it hasn't been a plot point in any of the films, so without that frame of reference, you might not have been aware of the link. However, Cable's surname, Summers, is mentioned briefly in Deadpool 2, so it seems like it's canon in the films as well as in the comics.

The majority of the novels published by crime writer James Ellroy all take place in the same universe, so it's common to see characters appearing between them. In Ellroy's 2014 release Perfidia, it was revealed that the arch-villain of his famous L.A. Quartet Series (which includes The Black Dahlia and L.A. Confidential), corrupt L.A.P.D. detective Dudley Smith, is actually the father of Elizabeth Short, the real-life murder victim at the center of the unsolved Black Dahlia case.

Smith was memorably played James Cromwell in the 1997 film adaptation of L.A. Confidential, while Short was portrayed by Mia Kirshner in the less successful 2003 adaptation of The Black Dahlia. While no explicit link connects the films, if we look to the source material, they take place in the same world, which makes both characters even more tragic. Either way, it's a surprising connection that you wouldn't know unless you were all caught up on your Ellroy reading list.

According to one popular (and apparently canon) fan theory, Elsa and Anna's parents, who kick off the events of Frozen by getting lost at sea (supposedly while on their way to attend the wedding of fellow Disney royalty Rapunzel and Eugene), were actually pregnant with a third child at the time of their disappearance. Rather than perishing at sea, the couple washed up on a nearby island and gave birth to a child, only to be killed by a leopard (the events depicted at the beginning of Tarzan). Their child would survive, and grow up to be none other than Tarzan.

Surprisingly, this theory was actually confirmed by Frozen co-director Chris Buck, with the caveat that it's only his belief, and not necessarily the official corporate line. It just goes to show that what starts out as a fan theory might actually be legitimized later on. Don't lose hope, film fan theorists: your seemingly wild idea could serve as the connection for the next shared film universe.