Crossover Concepts in Film

I may need some help to determine if the following qualify:

Into the Woods (2014) - I haven't seen this film, but I understand it puts various fairy tale characters into a single continuity.
BUT, I read that it uses characters created by the Brothers Grimm. Now, if ALL the characters come from the same creator(s), then it's tough to say the Wold Newton concept applies. The question is, are all the characters from the Grimm's or does it utilize characters from other sources as well? And, if they are all Grimm characters, is there any way to know if the Grimm's considered all their tales taking place in the same universe or not?

Similarly, there are other films that utilize some famous fairy tale characters, but I don't know if they come from singular sources or various sources...
March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934) - a.k.a. Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland (1961)

People really don't like this thread, do they?

But seriously, do you think it's the title that are keeping people away (it just sounds like something they've never heard of, so they don't click on it) or is it a genuine lack of interest in the subject matter?

My guess would be the title is the problem. I don't think they know what it is, so they're just not opening the thread.

I think Into the Woods is all characters from Grimm's Fairy Tales, but I'm not sure about that. I'd have to research Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Hi GB, and thanks for your input. Can a title be edited?

P.S. Ultimately, I'd like to make a list of films that incorporate the concept.

I think only a mod can edit a title, but if you decide what you want to change the title to, you can ask one of them to change it.

I think Ðèstîñy might be online now. She's usually online at night, and she posted the the Halloween Song Tournament thread a little while ago. You can send her a PM and ask her to change it for you.

If you miss her, you can ask Yoda, Tacitus, or Loner. Any of them can change it too. (There are probably a couple of mods that I'm missing, but those are the ones that I can think of right now.)

Arg! I went to edit and it looked like I could edit the title and I did (along with some of the text in the opening post), but when I hit save it reverted back to the original title. So I guess you can't edit thread titles?

Okay, I have to make a correction -
When talking about the Universal Monsters I cited Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman (1943) as the first "shared universe," monster crossover. And it was indeed the first crossover of Universal Monsters, but it does not qualify for the shared universes concept and here's why.. (this is gonna get complicated...)

We all know that Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley and was ultimately acquired by Universal Pictures. But "The Wolfman" (the Larry Talbot Wolfman) was created for Universal's Wolfman movie. There was no "The Wolfman" in literature or movies before that - not the Larry Talbot bitten by a werewolf and who transforms into a monstrous wolf-man Wolfman. There were plenty of "werewolves," but no "The Wolfman."

So when Frankenstein - who's now an official Universal property - meets The Wolfman, we can't say that these were pre-existing characters from literature or elsewhere. They're both Universal characters meeting. So I declare this film officially disqualified since they are too ambiguous due to them both being Universal properties at the time, and one of them being created solely by Universal itself. (But anywhere Frankenstein meets Dracula or the Invisible Man meets Dr. Jeckyll and Mister Hyde, etc., these still qualify.)

GB, took your advice!
And special thanks to Yoda for the help!

I'm glad that you were able to get the title changed. Maybe more people will read this thread now and join in the discussion.

I see there's a King Kong vs. Godzilla thread up on this site - that's another movie that would make it to this list as two famous movie monsters from different studios and opposite sides of the world met.

And in the spirit of Halloween and the topic of this thread (especially since it's monster movies that seem to start the list of Crossover Concepts on Film) there's this...

Believe it or not, I don't think I've ever seen a Godzilla movie. I saw the original 1933 version of King Kong, but I haven't seen any of the remakes.

The very first Godzilla film (1954) was dark and dead serious - a far cry of what the Godzilla movies would become in the 60's. It was a warning about the misuse of nuclear weapons - this coming from Japan which, only 9 years earlier, had been the first and only country to experience being the target of 2 nuclear bombs. There was an American version of the same film released in 1956 in which they inserted added scenes with Raymond Burr as a reporter. I've never scene the original Japanese version.

Maybe it was documentary?

The "official" list of "shared universe" films will commence soon.
I'm going to try to keep it chronological, and it's going to start with the Universal Monsters as I don't know of any films before them that engaged in crossovers with established characters that had origins outside their respective studios.

Now I keep going back and forth on Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman as qualifying. Frankenstein was a Universal property by then and the Wolfman was created by Universal, but it's not like Wolfman was created just to meet Frankenstein. And since Frankenstein's origin is from long before & outside of Universal, whiles Wolfman's is within Universal... I don't know...
I think I'm just going to retract my former exclusion and call their movie the first "shared universe" crossover on film!

I think you need someone who's an expert in the Universal Monsters. I'm somewhat familiar with most of the characters, but most of the movies that I've seen them in starred Abbott and Costello.

The List Begins (the Universal Monsters):

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)
House of Frankenstein (1944)
House of Dracula (1945)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Exclusions: Abbott and Costello met several other Universal monsters on film, but despite the titles of those films bearing the duo's names, the comedians played different characters created just for those films - there was no crossover of established characters involved (and I've decided not to count fictional characters meeting real living or historic people).

I'm doing the research.

Among the Universal Monsters, the Wolfman, the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon (along with a bunch of creepy killers & various outer space monsters of the 1950's) were created for movies by the studio.

While the following "Universal Monsters" were pre-existing from classic literature...

• The Phantom of the Opera - by Gaston Leroux
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame - by Victgor Hugo (could never figure out why he was considered a "monster" since he was a hero.)
• Dracula - by Bram Stoker
• Frankenstein - by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
• The Invisible Man - by H.G. Wells
• Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde - by Robert Louis Stevenson

More exclusions - I'm excluding all the "Scary, Epic, Disaster, Date Movie" series from the list.
Now most of these would surely apply, but almost the whole series is regarded by most people (especially on this site) as bottom of the barrel trash.
There's so many of them and their intent was never to create a shared universe or crossover event, but to lampoon various movie franchises (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Yet I will include other movies that used parodies because the characters they wanted to use were already copyrighted, such as Murder by Death and Monsters vs. Aliens.

The List Thus Far:

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)
House of Frankenstein (1944)
House of Dracula (1945)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
Mad Monster Party (1967)
Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters (1972)
Murder by Death (1976)
Murder Can Hurt You! (1980)
The Monster Squad (1987)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Van Helsing (2004)
Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
The Lego Movie (2014)
Hotel Transylvania II (2015)

Up for debate / clarification:

March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934)
Babes in Toyland (1961)
Into the Woods (2014)

It's a bit disheartening to see that the trend seems to focus on monster movies (it must be due to the Universal Studios' influence that set the pace).
I'm sure there are more, so keep 'em coming!

P.S. GB, if you're reading this don't feel you need to respond out of pity!