Warning: Spoilers.

I saw The Lego Batman Movie over the weekend, and there were several characters outside of the DC universe from seemingly unrelated franches. I wondered how much had to paid for rights to use them until I started looking them up.

For example, Voldemort was an important villain in this movie. Lego Batman is done by Warner Bros., which also released the Harry Potter movies.

Sauron was also integral. The Lord of the Rings was distributed by New Line Cinema... which merged with Warner Bros. back in 2008.

King Kong made an appearance. The original 1933 film was made by RKO pictures. After the studio's demise in the 1970s, Turner Broadcasting bought the rights to its intellectual properties, which eventually merged with Time Warner, the parent company of Warner Bros.

The Wicked Witch of the West was also there. The Wizard of Oz is under MGM, but Ted Turner owned a majority share in the comapany for a long time. Many early MGM films entered into his library under Turner Broadcasting thanks to that.

It doesn't account for every appearance in the film; there were Dr. Who villains that are under BBC. But just looking at the sheer amount of work that Time Warner controls, it boggles the mind.