8 Movie Spin-offs That Add to the Original

Not every movie is based on a book or a comic book, some are based on other movies. We aren’t talking about sequels here, we’re talking about a whole new separate movie. Just imagine the opposite of The Avengers.

The Conan spin-off, Red Sonja, came out in 1985. The character Red Sonja lives in the same universe as Conan, which is why it looks like they used so many of the same sets and costumes. Arnold Schwarzenegger even makes an appearance, not as Conan, but as Lord Kalidor. So if you’re in the mood for Conan but really dislike the whole Conan character then this movie is perfect for you.

After the success of the Superman movies they decided to make 1984’s Supergirl. This film featured Helen Slater as the title superhero, this was her first feature film. To help fill out the cast they got some pretty amazing actors in Peter O’Toole and Faye Dunaway. Luckily for us all the film wasn’t as bad as it could have been, because it could have been worse than horrible.

Borat started his life as a character on Da Ali G Show. At the time he was just one of Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters, thankfully he decided to bring Borat to the big screen. Cohen has also delivered another spin-off with Bruno, who was also a character from Da Ali G Show. So the point of this is jut go watch Da Ali G Show.

After The Fugitive did really well in the theaters the studio decided that they could make some more money from Tommy Lee Jones, so they made U.S. Marshals. This time around it was all about the U.S. Marshals that hunt escaped convicts. Tommy is joined by Robert Downey Jr. as they hunt Wesley Snipes, after he escapes from jail. It just so happens that Wesley Snipes’ character is a former spec ops guy so it isn’t that easy to capture him. But don’t worry, because there’s a twist, because it’s never that simple.

After Ben Affleck’s Daredevil turned out to be horrible, they decided that they really wanted to lose some money, so they made Elektra. We really don’t know why they made this, it was a peripheral character that really hadn’t gotten much attention before. They must have thought that you could throw any superhero onto the big screen, but this one didn’t stick.

This is 40 is a spin-off of the wildly popular film Knocked Up. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann’s characters from Knocked Up, the supporting characters finally became the leads. Luckily Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are strong enough actors to pull it off, although unfortunately they aren’t big enough to draw the numbers that Knocked Up brought in.

Get Him to the Greek is the spin-off of the popular comedy film Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It follows Russell Brand’s character, Aldous Snow, a decadent musician that is beyond their prime. In Get Him to the Greek Jonah Hill is tasked by Sean “Puffy” Combs to bring Russell Brand’s character to a concert. It’s a tale of wackiness as they make their way to the Greek, a theater.

Machete is a spin-off of a trailer. The original trailer was featured on the Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino film project Grindhouse. Robert Rodriguez had originally concocted the idea when he worked with Danny Trejo on Desperado, he thought that Danny would be perfect for the character of Machete.