It's with that in mind that I often find myself trying to link two completely separate movies together in a sort of fanfic multiverse. Sometimes the two movies have similarly written characters in different eras, and sometimes it’s as simple as the two movies starring the same actor. For example, can’t you see a universe where Matt Damon’s Will Hunting in Good Will Hunting gets recruited by the CIA once he leaves Boston, then goes on to become Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne? What about connecting the dots to see how Inherent Vice kinda works as a prequel to The Big Lebowski? 

Frankly, I love this general idea, and I do it quite often, if for no other reason than as a creative exercise to generate fun movie conversations. Also, it just adds a lot of fun to my movie watching, like a movie-based, plotline-driven jigsaw puzzle I put together in my head. I’ve given you two quick hitters above, but please let me share two of my more well-thought-out multiverse narratives. Sure, they don’t always line up perfectly, but if everything that is possible exists somewhere in the multiverse, these merged storylines are out there somewhere. Plus, it’s just a fun “what if…?” Don’t overthink it is all I’m saying.

THE CRUISEVERSE

Through soon-to-be eight Mission: Impossible movies, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has saved the world from countless threats, traitors, terrorists, and sleeper cells at great personal cost. For the safety of those he loves, he has been forced to give up his wife and live a relatively solitary existence, not to mention the countless injuries and near-death experiences he has experienced in the name of world peace. The thing is, even as he selflessly risks life and limb for the Impossible Mission Force (IMF), he almost always ends up getting painted as the bad guy, either by expert hackers or a mole within the IMF. What must this man do to get the benefit of the doubt? I mean, after all he has done, he’s still not fully trusted, having been either disavowed or flat-out considered a fugitive several times. At what point do you look at your government bosses and say, “Seriously?! This shit again?! I’ve been a top agent for more than 30 years! Fuck you! Remember when I scaled the side of the world’s tallest building to prevent nuclear war!?” Suffice to say, he’s rightfully pissed.

So, in the ninth Mission: Impossible movie…let’s call it Mission: Impossible — GFY…Hunt realizes that he has had enough. He’s tired of living alone and giving his all to a government agency that very clearly doesn’t trust or appreciate him. He’s tired of the meager government salary and knowledge that he doesn’t have a pension or disability payments waiting. He’s tired of being sore, jet-lagged, and constantly trying to out-sprint death. Most of all, my man’s old… he’s just tired of being tired, which is why Hunt decides to break bad. He hatches a plan to escape the spy life by faking his own death and creating a new identity. Once he does that, armed with a brain full of national secrets and a Rolodex holding the names of terrorists, warlords, dictators, rogue agents, and arms dealers, he makes a quick and lucrative sale. Maybe it’s nuclear codes, maybe it’s the identities of undercover agents, or maybe it’s the location of The Rabbit’s Foot in a nice callback to Mission: Impossible III; whatever it is, all that matters is Hunt is a very rich man now, not beholden to anything or anyone, and able to retire from the constant stress and gunfire of the IMF. As the credits on Mission: Impossible — GFY start to roll, the currently unnamed spy formerly known as Ethan Hunt sits on a private island, attempting to live happily ever after…

…until the mid-credit scene, which is where we see that happily ever after isn’t going as planned. One year later, he’s bored and rudderless, lacking in structure and purpose. He misses the rush of being an IMF agent: the adrenaline, the power, the control. Even worse, he needs it. It was the drug that kept him going. However, he can’t go back after what he’s done, and there are only so many career paths that can provide the rush he needs. He despondently sits at a laptop scrolling the dark web, beard scraggly and eyes lifeless. He gets a random message on behalf of Felix Reyes-Torrena, a known drug lord, offering him a job in Los Angeles. He leans forward with a glimmer of hope in his eye. A small smile forms across his face. This is it, the fix he needs to get back on track. He trims his beard and brushes his now-silver hair, dons a gray suit and crisp white shirt, and tosses his passport into a briefcase. As his passport flies open, we finally see his new name, Vincent. The scene fades to black, setting up the tenth and final Mission: Impossible movie: Mission: Impossible — Collateral.

THE McCONAUVERSE

In The Wolf of Wall Street, a very green Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) is hired as a naïve and relatively innocent junior stockbroker at L. F. Rothschild. By the end of his first day, he’s a changed man, and it all stems from a lunch he has with senior stockbroker Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey). During this lunch, Hanna unleashes a philosophy that will forever change Belfort. It’s a wild, decadent, free-wheeling approach to life that includes — in the middle of a work lunch, mind you — ordering a stream of martinis that is not to end until one of them “passes out,” doing cocaine at the table, asking his brand-new hire how often he masturbates, and admitting the only two reasons to be a stockbroker are the cocaine and hookers. On top of that, he tells Belfort “fuck the clients,” that he should grab the money and run, and to feed off the client’s addiction of chasing money. Then, he takes him to a strip club. To say that the extremely rich Hanna gives in to his baser instincts while not caring about anyone but himself would be an understatement. Since he has money, it’s a persona that serves him well in the culture of Wall Street. However, a short time later, Black Monday (the stock market crash of 1987) happens. This causes L. F. Rothschild to shut down and foreclose, forcing Hanna out of a job. After that, we don’t see him for the rest of the movie, nor are we told what happened to him. But I think I have an idea…

What happens to a wealthy man with seemingly no off-button and a probably addictive personality when he is suddenly broke? He hits rock bottom, often doing anything he can to reach the highs he had previously experienced. You’ve seen the cautionary tales of former NBA stars or lottery winners that end up living on the streets once the money runs out, and I don’t think it’s any different for Hanna. I envision him aimlessly bouncing around, looking for sex, drugs, booze, and “action” wherever he can find them. As a result, he becomes persona non grata in New York, so he runs away to Dallas. Why Dallas? Because it is an economic hub full of big oil money, so it’s a fresh start and a shot to get back in the game. However, he doesn’t have the connections yet and he’s rusty, so he finds himself on the hard-partying rodeo circuit as he continues to fight his demons. If you squint, there isn’t much difference in the level of machismo exuded by someone working on Wall Street (especially in the 80s) and a rodeo cowboy. Different brands of machismo, for sure, but unmitigated machismo, nonetheless. So, Hanna finds himself in Texas, getting drunk, doing drugs, and frequenting prosties, but since he’s no longer rich and wearing Armani suits, he’s operating at a bit of a lower standard. Sadly, before he’s able to work his way back into the financial world, he contracts HIV during one of his dalliances with a lady of the night. After several frustrating experiences with the health care system, Mark Hanna — the rich, selfish prick who likely thought himself invincible — comes face to face with the idea that he’s just another lower-class statistic stuck in the machine. From there, his outlook and story change, and he becomes a compassionate and selfless man who uses his wild-man tendencies to buck the system and help the helpless in The Wolf of the Dallas Buyers Club.