Based on the novel by...

Cracked has a list of eight kick-ass movies you didn't know were based on books. Actually, I knew all of these were originally books, and actually had read two of them (Robert Bloch's Psycho and the novella "Who Goes There" by John W. Campbell, if you care). Not that I didn't learn anything: I had no idea that Die Hard was a sequel to a book that was turned into a Frank Sinatra movie.

But the main reason I pass this article along is because the authors feverishly postulate the ultimate parallel universe in the final paragraph, a universe in which the author of Nothing Lasts Forever, the book that became Die Hard, meets with the stars of two movie adaptations of his work, and as a result produce the greatest movie ever made:

A later book the guy [Roderick Thorp] wrote, Rainbow Drive, got turned into a 1990 movie starring Peter Weller ... the guy who played RoboCop. That movie isn't as well known, because the title made it sound like a film about a gay resort.

In some alternate universe, we like to think this connection led Mr. Thorp, Bruce Willis and Peter Weller to sit down for drinks one day. The three would walk away from this meeting in our alternate 1991 with an agreement to make Die Hard vs. RoboCop. In this alternate universe, the 1993 Academy Awards had to be canceled, because one film won every single award.

That. Would. Have. Been. Freaking. Awesome.