Vince Vaughn Universe
Have you ever watched an actor or actresses movies and thought these movies could be in the same universe? In other words these movies could be one chronological story and these characters are the same person living out a “real” life. Welcome to the Vince Vaughn Universe.
Vince Vaughn is bonafide movie star. With films like Dodgeball and Wedding Crashers, Vaughn has starred in some of the biggest comedies of the past decade. He got his start in 1993 with a role in Rudy and has been a part of our lives ever since. Vaughn usually plays the same character, the funny guy that everyone loves. This got me thinking, what if the characters from his movies were one single person, living a life just like us? I looked at his career and picked out some of the movies and created a sort of life story. We will start with a list of the movies and their plots that will form this life story. Let’s set some ground rules:
Obviously the names and details of some of the films are not going to line up perfectly, so sue me
I had to take some liberties with some of the plots to make things line up for the story but nothing crazy
I am using Vince Vaughn’s name throughout, instead of the multiple names of characters he has played
Movies
Swingers, 1996: Mike is a struggling actor who left New York and his girlfriend of 6 years to try and find success in L.A. Mike’s best friend, Trent (Vince), convinces him a trip to Vegas is what he needs to get over his ex. Chaos and hilarity ensue in this timeless classic
Old School, 2003: Three friends attempt to recapture their glory days by opening up a fraternity near their alma mater. Another party classic for our guy Vince.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, 2004: A group of misfits, led by Vaughn, enter a Vegas dodgeball tournament in order to save their local gym. (Enter the loveable loser Vaughn character)
Wedding Crashers, 2005: Vince teams up with Owen Wilson to create one of the best comedies in recent history, Vaughn and Wilson sneak into weddings to hook up with woman. If you haven’t seen Wedding Crashers are you even human?
The Break-Up, 2006: Vince and Jennifer Aniston (what a combo) star in this rom-com where they battle over their condo after they break up.
The Watch, 2012: Not a great movie but a solid cast with Vaughn, Ben Stiller, and Jonah Hill. They form a neighborhood watch group as a way to get out of their day to day routine and they end up having to save Earth from an alien invasion.
The Internship, 2013: Vince and Owen are back together again and starring as salesmen whose careers have gone by the wayside thanks to the digital age. They earn an internship at Google and must compete with much younger adversaries.
Delivery Man, 2013: In what might be the strangest plot of all time, Vaughn finds out that he has fathered 533 children from anonymous donations to a fertility clinic 20 years ago. Umm okay…..
Brawl in Cell Block 99, 2017: A real interesting turn for our guy Vince as he plays a former boxer turned drug runner that lands in prison after a deal goes bad. Also he completely shaved his head for this role so that is really something.
Movie Order for Universe
Swingers
Wedding Crashers
Delivery Man
The Break-Up
Old School
Dodgeball
The Internship
The Watch
Brawl in Cell Block 99
Universe
(We are going to call Vince by his god given name throughout this universe to keep things simple and easy to understand)
We find a young Vince in Las Vegas with his best friend Jon Favreau, both are struggling actors trying to hit it big. Jon is struggling after a break up with his girlfriend of six years and Vince suggests a trip to Vegas to help him get over the breakup. Jon is trying to get back in the game with help from Vince but he is really struggling to get over his ex. Frustrated with his friend Vince decides the best thing to do is give Jon space and let him figure things out for himself. While helping Jon, Vince meets another party animal, a man by the name of Owen Wilson. With Jon in the rearview mirror, Owen and Vince come up with a plan to pick up women: crash weddings and pick up girls there. This plan works for years as they come up with complex stories they tell the families at weddings and they sleep with hundreds of women over time. After his time in Vegas with Jon, Vince began dating Jennifer Aniston and has been sneaking out on weekends to crash weddings with Owen. Vince tells Jennifer he is going on work trips but instead he is crashing weddings with Owen.
Owen finds out that Vince is in a committed relationship and gives him two options, he tells Jen about the wedding crashing or Owen will. This causes their friendship to fall apart and when Vince refuses to tell Jen, Owen takes matters into his own hands. He tells Jen about the wedding crashing and Vince’s infidelity and partying. Jen is shocked and refuses to believe it, things take a turn for the worse for Jen and Vince’s relationship. The hundreds of women Vince slept with during his wedding crashing days come forward and say he is the father of the children. With this news Jen breaks up with Vince and he is alone with multiple lawsuits for child support. As his life spirals out of control Vince turns to the one thing he knows how to do well partying.
Attempting to recapture his glory days and bury his real world problems, Vince calls up his two friends from college, Luke and Will. They decide to turn Luke’s house into a fraternity house to relive their glory days. This isn’t your ordinary fraternity house, it is dedicated to misfits, losers, middle aged and elderly retirees. While frat life is going well, the three friends begin to realize they are middle aged men doing nothing with their lives and decide to shut down the house. Vince is trying to decide where his life goes from here as he is still dealing with child support and has other bills mounting up. He ultimately settles on opening a gym called Average Joe’s. He decides the gym is going to be for people who cannot afford an average gyms’ prices or are uncomfortable at most gyms. Like his child support payments, the bills for Average Joe’s quickly pile up and go unpaid. His team decides to try and save the gym by joining a dodgeball tournament in Vegas.
After winning the tournament and paying off the bills for Average Joe’s, Vince is approached by Google for a highly sought after internship. Google likes what Vince has done with the gym and thinks he could be a great fit for the business (even though he is an awful gym owner and only paid the bills by winning a dodgeball tournament). Vince teams up with his old friend, Owen, as they fight against young, tech-savvy college kids for the internship. How do they connect with the college kids? By doing what they do best, they take them out for a night of partying at a strip club. Vince and Owen win out and are offered jobs with Google.
Flash forward a few years and Vince is thriving at Google, he has a family and lives in a nice neighborhood where he meets Ben Stiller. Ben is trying to start up a local neighborhood watch group after a recent string of murders in the area. Vince sees the opportunity as a fun way to meet the neighbors and have a couple drinks with the guys. However joining the watch gives Vince an idea, he can use this as an excuse to get into the drug game and make more money for his family. Unfortunately for Vince, he gets mixed in with the wrong crowd and finds himself in a prison led by a crooked Warden. While he is in prison his pregnant wife gets kidnapped and Vince is told the only way he will see her alive is if he kills another inmate. Vince is a family man and says he will never cross that line. The drug lord will not take no as an answer and threatens to kill Vince’s wife and his unborn child. With no other choice Vince starts a brawl and gets thrown in cell block 99, the block where they keep the worst of the worst. Vince finds the dealer he is supposed to kill and ultimately gets the job done but the Warden is not happy. As Vince hears that his wife and child are safe, the Warden takes matters into his own hands and shoots Vince.