Highest Grossing Movie Franchises

95th percentile. I'm glad I forgot Bayformers. I'm working hard to block those atrocities from my memory. Didn't miss any of the other top 12.

Also, maybe you could accept Jason Bourne for "Bourne?" Or just change the criteria to "contains Bourne" rather than "starts with?"

Oh that's the only one I forgot from the top 12 as well :)

It doesn't matter how you type it -- Bourne, Jason Bourne, The Bourne Identity, the Bourne Supremacy, ad nauseum -- because this franchise isn't on the list.

It was two and a half years ago when I left the comment.

When I read "Bayformers" the first thing that jumped into my mind was Baywatch since I recently saw the teaser for the new movie on YouTube. Imagine sexy, scantily clad autobots running in slow motion down the beach...

Really? I cant stand fast & furious, but that i just because I cant stand the sight of vin diesel haha. Havent seen hunger games, twilight or bourne identity etc. Ow and transformers, I think I saw 10 minutes of it (something in a backyard)

For all the others I can say there are some good ones there and the rest were at least entertaining.

Aside from Twilight, none as universally bad as the Bayformers movies, though many of these franchises did go down in quality over time... and others weren't exactly Oscar-worthy.

Is all this adjusted for inflation? Some of these franchises are pretty old?

No it's not. If it were, then James Bond would be #1. Rocky, Jaws, Superman, the Exorcist, The Godfather, Beverly Hills Cop and Lethal Weapon would all make the list, pushing off Men in Black, Ice Age, The Fast and the Furious, the Matrix, Jason Bourne, Iron Man, Madagascar and the Fockers.

oh, and Home Alone would be #24... inflation adjusted... if we are not counting Avengers.

lol i guessed all those

though... after researching my own quiz about Actors with Frequently Recurring Roles, I noticed that boxofficemojo doesn't seem to track data back any farther than the 60s or so. I figured this out because James Bond, with 24 films, is listed in their numbers as the franchise with the highest number of films. However, in my own research, I discovered many series with more than that. Hopalong Cassidy for example had 66 films in the series, and was enormously popular in its day. I wonder how some of those franchises would stack up against today's if the figures were adjusted for inflation. Look up on Wikipedia films with more than 10 installments and you'll see there are a ton, especially from pre-1951.

I thought Rocky would be on here.

I only got 4 . . . guess I'm just not in the zone today.

how did I forget my favourite movie franchise of all time - pirates?

No Superman? There have been a ton of those movies!

does Superman vs Batman add to both of those franchises totals? And if they make a Justice League movie will it then add to that one as well? The comic book crossover franchises are going to get confusing. Captain America 3 was really a mini-Avengers movie, too.

well they were missing 2 team members

Hardest thing about quizzes like this... Hollywood milks these series for all they're worth. I think we're up to

7 XMen (3 more possibly coming),

6 LOTR (with #7 on the way),

6 Fast and Furious (They should've stopped around 5 ago), and

12 Star Trek (More PLEASE!!!).

Okay, if I want more of one, I suppose it's possible people want more of the others...

Am I alone in thinking the Abrams Trek movies have been mostly awful, saved only by some fortuitous casting and the fun of seeing the original Trek characters young again?

And Fast and Furious should have been stopped before they made the first one.

You're probably not alone, but personally I find the reboot movies much more entertaining than any of the bald-girl-sacrificing, Khan-screaming, Spock-searching, whale-saving, God-impersonating, Kirk-framing plots from the original series' movie adaptations. Lens flares aside, the last two movies have completely revived my interest in a franchise of which I didn't even bother to see the previous two installments.

Some of the older Trek movies I don't care for, either. But personally I thought that Wrath of Khan and First Contact were superior films to the Abrams Treks, even if they weren't quite as much fun, and for my money, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is hands down the best Trek movie ever. Cool plot, smart script, snappy and fun dialogue, exciting action sequences.

but, yeah, there were without doubt several turds amongst the original films, too.

My complete ranking would be:

1. Star Trek (reboot)

2. Into Darkness

3. Undiscovered Country

4. First Contact

5. Wrath of Khan

6. Voyage Home

7. Search for Spock

8. Generations

9. Motion Picture

10/11 Insurrection and Nemesis (aka interchangeable slightly longer TNG episodes)

~37 Billion. Final Frontier (aka the WORST MOVIE EVER)

Well, since I started this, here are my rankings:

1 - First Contact

2 - Undiscovered Country

3 - Wrath of Khan

4 - Into Darkness

5 - Insurrection

6 - Voyage Home

7 - Star Trek 2009

8 - Nemesis

9 - Search for Spock

10 - Final Frontier

11 - Motion Picture

I would say Undiscovered Country is hands down the best. First Contact maybe 2nd best. Star Trek (2009), might actually be 3rd for me. The script has some really really stupid bits (Orci and Kurtzman are hacks), and Abrams' directing didn't do much for me, but it's a fun film, well cast. I'd put Wrath of Khan 4th... it was good, but I always thought it was overrated. Generations 5th which plats forgot to rank. Voyage Home might be a distant 6th, fun, but also overrated. And the rest are garbage. Including Into Darkness.

Ah crap. Hmm, Generations would go between Voyage Home and 2009.

The trouble with old movies is that one should remember the times in which they were first shown. For those of us who grew up watching only the cheesy special effects from the original Star Trek TV shows, those first movies were wonderful and we didn't even notice the negative aspects until critics pointed them out. I didn't like the first reboot movie at all. I feel the same way about Star Wars. Having just seen Rogue One, I much prefer the original Star Wars movies - the magic and humor has been lost to too much extreme fast-paced action and special effects. (Feel free to heap abuse on my head for that opinion.) With sequels maybe it just all boils down to expectations and how well they are met.

No Ander you've got many, many allies on your Star Wars opinion. The new films are mostly terrible. Rogue One wasn't *terrible* but it didn't match the originals. Force Awakens was mostly "meh" with a few good bits and a few terrible bits thrown in. The Last Jedi was just downright awful. And everyone born before 1990 hates the prequels.

I wonder where Star Trek Beyond would go in all these rankings.

^ I'd put it somewhere around the middle of the pack though I barely remember it. So for me...

1. The Undiscovered Country 2. First Contact 3. Star Trek (2009) 4. Wrath of Khan 5. Generations 6. The Voyage Home (cutoff of the "good" ones) 7. Beyond 8. Insurrection 9+. does it matter? all the rest sucked

It would be interesting to see how much this list would change when adjusted for inflation. It just seems wrong that Alien, Terminator, Die Hard, Jaws, Back to the Future and Planet of the Apes aren't on the list.

I was surprised when I found a WSJ article which gave a list of 35 series adjusted for inflation, and the results were not that different, only listed in a different order. The top five in descending order were Star Wars, James Bond, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Batman, and JK Rowling's Wizarding World (which included the HP movies along with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.) I was confused that the Harry Potter series also came in at number six and under both Rowling entries, the first HP movie was listed as the highest grossing. Not sure why HP and Wizarding World were considered as two separate franchises when the revenue was the same for both. https://247wallst.com/special-report/2017/04/24/35-top-grossing-movie-franchises-of-all-time/8/

Hey if you like this quiz you might like one I made:

http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/66970/100-greatest-film-performances-of-all-time

Boxofficemojo list only five godzilla movies. I wonder if it would qualify if they included all of them.

I'll be very curious to see how boxofficemojo handles the conundrum of into which franchise "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" belongs. In addition to being part of two existing franchises, it's meant to launch a third "Justice League" franchise as well.

Unlike this quiz, Box Office Mojo recognises the existence of the DC Extended Universe, as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If the quiz followed the source, Marvel would be far and away at the top.

star wars= life

You Think Terminator might be close to being on this list, as well as maybe godzilla, and indiana jones possibly. but what do I know

I knew almost all of them...I knew Twilight was number 5.....but refused to give it as an answer...such an insult to human intelligence that this can ranked number 5 alongside some of the great movies/franchises here

Your definitions of the franchises don't really make sense. I wouldn't call the unrelated films that all contain Batman as one franchise. That's not how the term is used in the modern-day industry, especially nowadays when they're all trying to get in on transmedia and cinematic universes. The Dark Knight Trilogy is a separate franchise to the previous four Batman films, just as two movies based on the same book aren't a franchise and a modern remake of an old film doesn't create a franchise. These aren't franchises; they're just films based on the same properties. It makes the results extremely inaccurate, not least because you're not counting the Marvel Cinematic Universe and now the DC Extended Universe.

By that logic, James Bond should be split up then. You going to complain about that too?

I should have guessed James Bond. It was the number that threw me. I had no idea there were that many Bond films.

I agree on the order but are these numbers correct? I thought some of these franchises would have way higher grosses.

What? None of the National Lampoon Vacation movies? Sad...

No Ma and Pa Kettle?

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/?view=Franchise&sort=sumgross&order=DESC

You know what would be fun? A quiz listing the least-grossing series with three entries or more, or maybe just the lowest average budget per movie. I think a lot of horror movie franchises would get there, because they're so cheap to make that they keep making them even if they don't earn a lot. And you'd likely get those series that kept going waaaay too long...American Pie, Police Academy, Iron Eagle, the Ernest movies, and probably a bunch of other guilty pleasures.

I think the Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street films might win that one? If it was per film.

unless you counted movies without a wide theatrical release and then... who knows... could be Sharknado or something.

Really great quiz- some of these i dint really expect

Now wait just a minute. The highest grossing movie franchise of all time is the Avengers franchise. And I don't care what quizmaster says, because I am sticking to the facts.

What facts? The Force Awakens grossed almost $1 billion alone. The 2 Avengers movies combined are less than $1.1 billion. So you're saying the 8 other Star Wars movies combined made less than $200 million?

He might be counting the entire MCU as part of the Avengers franchise. It's going to be confusing either way, but I think it would be better to consider the MCU and DCEU single franchises, then separate out the other Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Hulk and Captain America films that were not part of either and consider them separately. This creates more work but personally I think it makes more sense and is closer to reality.

MCU films: Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Thor, The Dark World, Ragnarok, The Avengers, Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 1 and 2, Ant-Man, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man Homecoming, Black Panther

non-MCU Spider-Man: Spider-Man, SM2, SM3, The Amazing Spider-Man, TASM2. Might be tricky figuring out where to place Venom.

other non-MCU films: Hulk (2003), Captain America (1990)

and then there are other strange things like how spider-man is in Captain America: Civil War (along with a bunch of other heroes). So does the revenue from that movie also count towards Spiderman's total?

DCEU film: Man of Steel, Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League

non-DCEU Batman films: Batman (1966), Batman (1989), Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Mask of the Phantasm, Lego Batman (?)

non-DCEU Superman films: Superman, Superman 2, Superman 3, Superman 4, Superman Returns

Star Wars, Spiderman, Pirates, Fast/Furious, Despicable Me need updating since new movies have come out. Plus Transformers and Thor have movies coming out later this year.

I managed to forget about Harry Potter. Freaky.

No, it wouldn't be on the list at all. The domestic gross of Avatar was $760.5M - the remainder was international, which is not counted here.

The only single movie that could make this list as a standalone is actually already part of a franchise - Star Wars Episode VII ($936M domestic). So can everyone stop talking about "single movie franchises" now?

End Game could make the list on it's own now if it weren't already part of avengers

Well there are four sequels to Avatar all in the works now, so it may get there soon enough, although I can't imagine anyone will really be that eager to see them. Everyone wanted to see Avatar for the technology, not the characters (who were barely characters). Unless James Cameron has more tricks up his sleeve, I doubt those movies will do anything close to the first one, although it seems there is limit to how little audiences demand as long as it's a property they're familiar with.

counting only the official movies would be better, 10 sw, 9 hp, 25 jb looks strange

I found a lot of these to be gross.

I’m disappointed that Despicable Me made more money than Toy Story did

One can immediately tell that I don't really care about movies by the fact that I forgot Star Wars. And pretty much everything else.

Why keep making a new Planet of the Apes movie every year if they earn an average of less than 100 million? the last movies look really high budget...

This quiz uses (I'm guessing US-) domestic gross. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes alone made over 710 million USD worldwide.

I agree with many of the other people who claim that the original Star Wars movies are better than the new ones. However, the two films which were not part of any of the three subtrilogies, Rogue One and Solo, were much better than the prequels or episodes VII and VIII. Considering how well-known the movies on this list are, I am surprised how few of the franchises I guessed.

Any reason LOTR says "4" movies? Does that include the Bakshi debacle?

I'm wondering that myself

So does the live action remake count as part of the lion king franchise? If so, it's awfully close to making the list.

Coconut cream pie is $5 in Jamaica. Key Lime pie is $6 in the Bahamas. Banana Cream pie is $8 in Barbados. These are the "Pie Rates of the Caribbean. "

Oh, missed The Hobbit films as assumed they would be counted under Lord of the Rings given how closely they are related. Should have paid attention to the number of films and the fact that the answer wasn't Middle Earth.

They should totally be combined into one franchise on this quiz. It is one continuous story with the same actors playing the same characters, and the same director.

A favorite trivia question of mine is to ask someone what is the highest-grossing movie franchise that does not feature a major character with any kind of magical or super powers. The answer for a long time was Bond, but it looks like Fast & the Furious just squeaked by it. People rarely get it right without help (at least when it was Bond), and then they slap their forehead when they hear the answer.

Considering the stunts they do in the Fast and Furious movies I'm surprised some of them are still living (Vin Diesel's character in particular should have died at least three times). It might not be a stretch to call them super human.

Is that Daisey Ridley or Emma Watson in the photo? I just looked at it for like 45 seconds, and I can't tell.

It's Emma Watson.

But now it's been changed to a Stormtrooper so this comment doesn't make sense anymore.

Sorry to be a nitpicker, but there are actually 6 Mission: Impossible movies. The source also counts 11 Star Wars movies (I'm assuming they're talking about Star Wars: The Clone Wars from 2008). And then there's Hobbs & Shaw (Fast & Furious spin off), but that came out after the last update.

Here you go.

Why does it say four LOTR movies?

I was wondering the same?

I'm wondering the same...

Absolutely SHOCKED that Jaws isn't on here. I thought SURELY Jaws-4 would've put the franchise over the top. :-P

Horror movies don't usually make that much money (some exceptions, like the Exorcist and Us), but they are also typically very cheap to produce, so if they're successful they will churn out a bunch of sequels.

In my opinion, as increasingly interconnected as all of the MCU movies are, they should be counted as a single franchise. Even though it gets confusing with films that are adjacent but not technically a part of it like Venom and Morbius, and other films that could be in two different franchises like Spider-Man: Homecoming. I think the best solution is to count all of the official MCU films as part of the MCU franchise, count Venom and Morbius as part of the Spider-Man franchise, and count Homecoming and Far From Home as part of both franchises... so those films gets counted twice.

In the same way I think Batman vs. Superman is technically a Superman film, a Batman film, and a DCEU film. I'd count it as part of all three.

I also think Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit should be considered the same franchise and filed under "Middle Earth." ... the same way that Logan and Deadpool are counted with X-Men.

I agree. For example, Captain America: Civil War could logically be classed as an Avengers film given all of the characters, although it is primarily about Captain America. The MCU is so connected now that they should all be grouped.

Avengers 2.5!

I think this needs an update, pretty sure Frozen would be on this list right now

I just can't believe that Police Academy isn't in here. What is wrong with the world?

Well for starters, the fact that it became a franchise in the first place is what's wrong with the world. I only saw the first movie and hated it, and from what I've heard the sequels aren't any better.

I enjoyed them when I was 7.

The stats for X-Men is wrong, it's about 6 billion with 10 films, other things have been updated, but not these films.... :/