And it’s over. Like a gorgeous kiss of sun before the fall of evening, another summer has come to pass, and we are all left to settle into our post-Labor Day lives. Technically speaking, summer does not end until September 22, but as every school kid knows that when the classes start and the parents quit wearing white, it is time to look to the leaves.
So it is with Hollywood as well. While the studios are always eager to start the summer movie season earlier and earlier—it is dipping well into the beginning of April with Captain America: The Winter Soldier next year—they too acknowledge that they have squeezed the last bit of excited franchising from moviegoers by the time the beaches empty (at least until Thanksgiving). Everyone is ready to take a break from big blockbusters and even bigger sequel-led franchising by the time the cool breezes come. Yet, even the most lax geek is concurrently curious to look back and estimate. Just how did your favorite franchise do this year? Or where do your pet-characters stand in contrast to the others in the field as one movie season ends and the hype for another soon begins?
Well, we here at Den of Geek are happy to take a look at what another summer meant to the ever-shifting horse placement in the box office derby that lasts every 12 months, and what the contests for the next year (or two) seem to mean for Hollywood’s evermore dependent bread and butter.
Join us as we consider just what are the most valuable franchises in Hollywood circa 2013.
***SPECIAL NOTE: We will only be considering franchises still releasing films into the foreseeable future. Sorry, Mr. Potter and Ms. Swan***
15. Star Trek
Most Recent Entry: Star Trek Into Darkness ($462 million worldwide)
By far one of the oldest and most enduring franchises, Star Trek is a great place to kickoff this list. After all, the franchise just celebrated its second reboot/remake/re-whatever this summer and already enjoys a threequel that has been placed on the fast track, which star Zachary Qunto stated could shoot as early as next year. Albeit, we are willing to bet that the franchise may take a little bit longer to launch once more into the boffo cosmos: All the better to enjoy the 50th anniversary hype bound to spring up in 2016.
Still, as ancient and illustrious as the franchise’s history is, there is no denying that its credibility took a hit in 2013. Sure, May’s Star Trek Into Darkness received mostly positive and upbeat reviews from critics who had not yet been beaten into CGI submission. However, the film clearly divided fans who still cannot agree if Benedict Cumberbatch playing Khan is a good thing. Further, the sequel took the length of a U.S. presidential term to reach its multiplex of port. In that time, excitement has clearly waned over the JJ Abrams-led reimagining. While the joyful Star Trek (2009) reboot silenced cynics with its impressive $257 million domestic haul ($385 million worldwide), it clearly did not build the way studios hoped. In contrast, previously well received launches and reboots, including Batman Begins and Transformers, were able to birth even bigger box office sequels, but Star Trek shrank at the domestic box office by a worrisome $29 million. And I’m sure Paramount Pictures recalls that just over a decade ago, Star Trek: Nemesis grossed only $67 million worldwide.
Fortunately, this is nothing to fret over, Trekkers. With a new director at the helm for a more immediate sequel, and a 50th anniversary to capitalize on, there is little doubt that there are still new box office charts to boldly go on this lucrative enterprise.
14. X-Men
Most Recent Entry: The Wolverine ($358 million worldwide)
X-Men is a staggeringly dense and confusing franchise with a mythology more confounding than a Rubik’s Cube. In short, it is finally doing its source material proud!
Credited as being the first “modern” superhero series of the 21st century, X-Men launched in 2000 with a meager $75 million budget, which carried it shockingly close to $300 million worldwide. It is arguable whether 20th Century Fox realized what a goldmine it had until Spider-Man kicked the door off the super-greens a few years later, however they clearly figured it out by 2009. Despite “ending” the X-Trilogy with the totally forgettable and mediocre X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), the franchise has somehow managed three more entries. Between X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class and The Wolverine releasing in the last four years, it turns out there is still plenty of ground for the series to stand on.
However, the series has definitely shrunk in its appeal. While I would personally argue that Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class is easily the best in the franchise’s history and one of the better superhero movies ever made, it was also the least successful of the last four entries, grossing only $353 million worldwide. This summer’s The Wolverine also did worse in the U.S. market than any installment to date with a paltry $128 million domestic—that’s $29 million less than the original X-Menmovie that didn’t have 13 years of added inflation and 3D surcharges to help its final tally. Of course, this is likely due to the pathetic quality of Last Stand, which grossed $459 million worldwide, and X-Men Origins.
Yet, Fox is only now seeing the real potential of the X-Universe. With 2014’s upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past, Fox is essentially rebooting the franchise by using time travel as a vehicle for wiping away all the dippy sequels nobody liked (not unlike Star Trek’s reboot). Even better, they are doing it by bringing back everyone’s favorite actors in the franchise all for one movie—Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Ellen Page, etc.—and they’re using it as a launching ground for a universe as dense with spin-offs and semi-sequels as Disney’s own Marvel Studios. It currently appears that X-Men’s slightly more adult themes of racism, bigotry and social acceptance, right down to open parallels with the gay rights movement of today and the civil rights leaders of the 1960s, has cost the franchise from ever soaring to the financial stratospheres of Spider-Man or The Avengers. However, if the series can produce a reliable $300+ million box office entry every other year for the next decade…it will be doing just fine. Heck, with so many potential spin-offs, it could end up as one of the defining summer staple for years to come, which sounds great to any studio’s bottom line.
13. Superman
Most Recent Entry: Man of Steel ($657 million worldwide)
Superman may be the Godfather of Superheroes, but he has dove in hype far more than soared in recent years. Despite box office experts stating that this summer’s Man of Steel would earn at least $800 million in worldwide receipts, with $1 billion still on the table as early as the Monday after opening weekend, the dour superfly reboot is going to have to settle for less than $700 million. To be fair, this is far superior to 2006’s Superman Returns earning the reboot-killing figure of $391 million worldwide, but when a franchise based on one of the most globally recognized brands cannot cross $400 million, there is a problem. Consider: If Warner Brothers was happy with Man of Steel’s returns, do you really think that they would have placed Batman in “Superman’s sequel?”
Fortunately, Superman is still one of the most valuable brands in the history of marketing. More than any other superhero, his emblem is ubiquitous. Nearly any person in the world, at least certainly one living near a movie theater, can recognize its meaning. And even on an entry that has divided fans, yet again, and earned the overblown wrath of spiteful critics, Man of Steel is still an unqualified success and one of the year’s biggest hits. This is a testament to the character whose future only looks bright, no matter how many 9/11 images Zack Snyder may throw at the screen.
The inclusion of the currently far more popular Batman in a Superman sequel only guarantees more exposure. And just ask the already beloved Iron Man what a team-up can do for your solo franchise’s numbers. Beyond that, the Man of Steel franchise appears to serve as the bedrock for a future DC Cinematic Universe that may one day include The Flash, Wonder Woman, and even the oft-fabled Justice League. If one puts Superman at the center of this multi-franchise world, all of a sudden Man of Steel looks like a great takeoff toward the billions to come.
12. The Fast and The Furious
Most Recent Entry: Fast & Furious 6 ($787 million worldwide)
Who would have thought when The Fast and The Furious opened in 2001 that it would become one of the most lucrative (and endless) movie brands of the 21st century? Universal Pictures surely didn’t. While that original entry made an impressive $207 million worldwide, star Vin Diesel opted out of an immediate sequel. By the time the third installment came about, Paul Walker was also gone and Universal was even toying with turning the logo into a Direct-to-DVD brand. But somehow, directing newcomer Justin Lin turned that threequel, The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, into a mildly entertaining installment. He also got something far more valuable out of it: Vin Diesel agreeing to a cameo.
Indeed, Diesel eventually decided to come back for a new entry called (what else?) Fast and Furious, which was billed as the first “real” sequel, as it had all of the stars from the original back. But then Diesel and Lin did two more back-to-backs, which brought characters from the other movies back together as well. Think an automotive, grease- covered dirty cousin to The Avengers. Throw in Dwayne Johnson and some hilarious chest-thumping between the stars when cars aren’t crashing and colliding in visually stimulating ways, and we end up with the most purely unapologetic action series of the last 15 years; one who has seen its last two adventures gross more worldwide than storied legacies like X-Men and Star Trek. It is also one that has no end in sight. Expectations are not exactly high on a series about car thieves who…steal cars that they drive very, very fast. As long as Diesel, Walker, Johnson and other familiar faces keep agreeing to show up for more inventive vehicular mayhem, there is no reason that the series should not continue easily crossing $600 million worldwide on a budget half the size of the caped and cowled franchises. Oh, and they can be turned out like boosted wheels: Fast & Furious 7 comes out next July, only 14 months after Fast & Furious 6.
11. The Hunger Games
Most Recent Entry: The Hunger Games ($691 million worldwide)
Finally, an entry where the lead isn’t cut to look like an action figure. The Hunger Games left box office watchers shell-shocked in 2012 when it earned $408 million at the U.S. box office alone (that’s better than three out of this summer’s four superhero movies). This put it in the Top 15 Highest Grossing Domestic Films of all time. You could say the series was on fire.
Based on a Young Adult series about a girl forced to battle other children to the death for reality television sport, complete with a love triangle, this series did not seem like the surest of bets. Granted, it would make money on a $78 million budget, but even initially comparable Twilight, another YA series with genre elements and a love triangle, only crossed $300 million domestic once in five installments. But unlike those films, The Hunger Games is actually good appeals to more than a primarily young female teen demographic. This new series captures that too, but it also has almost as good a pull with young teenage boys and, even more surprising, their parents. Even 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney made it be known that he watched this pop culture lightning rod.
In the time since that franchise kickoff, star Jennifer Lawrence has become America’s Sweetheart by earning her second Academy Award nomination and her first win for Silver Linings Playbook. The actress, now enjoying a fandom that rivals Katniss’, is set to lead The Hunger Games: Catching Fire this Thanksgiving, which is far primer real estate than the 2012 episode’s March release. Better still, Hollywood precedence shows that the sequels to these teen-leaning films always do better than the original. Twilight grossed $192 million domestic and $392 million worldwide. Comparatively, its first sequel earned $296 million domestic and $709 million worldwide. That series tapped out with $829 million worldwide on its final bow, yet nobody over 18 seems to ever admit that they liked those movies. What can the much more generally accepted Hunger Games and Ms. Lawrence do with three consecutive holiday releases between now and Thanksgiving 2015?
10. Pirates of the Caribbean
Most Recent Entry: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($1.04 billion worldwide)
Once upon a time, Captain Jack’s greatest claim to fame on pop culture was being the name of a Billy Joel song. However, everyone today knows the name of Jack Sparrow. CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow at that.
Considered a monumental risk in the early 2000s by Disney management, some of whom apparently thought Johnny Depp was “gay-ing” up their movie, Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbeanis the most iconic original film hero arguably since Indiana Jones. However one may feel about the quality of the Pirates sequels, there is no denying that their success was built off the end of Depp’s contorted and quirky hat. Undeniably, those sequels also prove the rule that goodwill builds to even bigger returns. While the original Curse of the Black Pearl earned an eyebrow-raising $305 million domestic and $654 million worldwide (not to mention an Oscar nomination for Depp), its most direct sequel earned an even more breathtaking $423 million domestic and $1.06 billion worldwide.
Clearly the franchise has waned in popularity, as the third voyage with the good Cap’n only grossed $963 million worldwide. Yet, if you keep a weather eye on the horizon, it is still easily one of the most reliable brands in the 21st century. Haters can point to the ominous domestic drop of 2011’s entry, which with $241 million is the first Pirates movie not to cross $300 million in the States. But around the world? Witty Jack is more popular than ever, as his $800 million overseas totals carried the character back over the $1 billion threshold. It is thus no surprise that Disney is already furiously at work on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales for 2015 with a SIXITH movie also likely in the cards. Savvy?
9. Spider-Man
Most Recent Entry: The Amazing Spider-Man ($752 million worldwide)
And still, one franchise that has followed an almost dual trajectory (domestically) with Pirates is that of everyone’s favorite friendly neighborhood webhead. Launched in 2002 with the industry-changing Spider-Man (the first film to gross over $100 million in a single weekend, leading to $821 million worldwide), the series has consistently proven nigh indestructible. It may have even redefined the industry again when Sony Pictures rebooted the still infinitely popular franchise in 2012 with The Amazing Spider-Man. Veritably, this was mostly due to the fact that director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire bowed out of an early pre-production process for Spider-Man 4, and Sony needed to rush a fourth web-slinger film to theaters or risk losing the license back to Marvel’s new home at Disney. But hey, even if the Andrew Garfield reboot was met with a lukewarm $262 million domestic, it still crossed $750 million worldwide. Very few franchises can literally drop $140 million in worldwide grosses between entries, as Spider-Man 3 earned $890 million, and shrug it off.
More importantly, The Amazing Spider-Man sets the precedent that even beloved visions and interpretations of characters, such as Raimi and Maguire’s take on Peter Parker, can be replaced at the drop of a hat. Amazing may have suffered some backlash for being only five years after Spider-Man 3, as well for essentially remaking the exact same plot of the original Spider-Man, but it still made boffo. And now, with the Raimi trilogy even further in the rearview mirror, Sony is banking on Garfield-led sequels to be more readily embraced by moviegoing audiences, as Sony has slated THREE Amazing Spider-Mansequels to be released in the next five years! Obviously, their incredibly daring gamble to play it safe with Spidey has influenced other studios, such as Warner Brothers who unapologetically is rebooting the Batman franchise just three years after Christopher Nolan’s crowning genre achievement, The Dark Knight Trilogy, concluded its epic run. Even Marvel Studios is reportedly looking beyond Robert Downey Jr. for the future of Tony Stark. Unlike Jack Sparrow, Spidey proves that some brands can endure no matter how popular an actor under the mask may be.
8. The Tolkien Universe
Most Recent Entry: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($1.01 billion worldwide)
Many of the tropes and types in all this genre fare have one progenitor: J.R.R. Tolkien. A World War I veteran, poet, and professor of English Language and Literature at Merton College, Oxford, Tolkien is a man known for many things. Of course, his greatest legacy is the world of Middle-Earth. The most comprehensive and definitive form of “high fantasy,” Tolkien’s fantastic medieval world of magic and wonder, camaraderie and insidiousness still remains the blueprint for most major fantasy fiction. He developed this methodically detailed universe over decades with books such as The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings.
The last title, a three-volume mega-novel that is often mistaken for three separate books, had been called unfilmmable throughout the whole of the 20th century, despite many attempts, including by The Beatles during the 1960s. Yet, when New Line Cinema allowed Peter Jackson to tell the book in not only his requested two films, but in THREE, Jackson embarked on arguably the most ambitious film shoot in history. At 9.5 hours (in its theatrical form), he evidently did shoot a lot of film. The Lord of the Rings film trilogy defied skeptics with each film crossing $800 million worldwide, and ending on the Oliphant-sized $1.1 billion in 2003. In the intervening decade, everyone, most of all New Line, waited for an adaptation to Lord of the Rings’forebearer, The Hobbit. Even after New Line got rolled up into another logo for Warner Brothers, the anticipation was rampant. After efforts by both Sam Raimi and most especially Guillermo del Toro fell through, Jackson decided to shoot a film version of the brisk 276-page book himself…into three separate three-hour films.
Whatever you may think of the soundness of this concept, or the quality of the deliberately paced 2012 installment The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, consider how much financial sense it makes. Ever since WB discovered you can cut one book into two with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, everyone has been signing on for the profit-doubling concept for final installments. Well, Peter Jackson outdid them all by discovering one can adapt a single novel, and a fairly short one at that, into at least nine hours of cinema. That also is going to likely equal $3 billion dollars as well. Add in double dip DVDs, extended cuts, and re-extended cuts with additional deleted scene features, and this franchise will continue to be making money after we’ve ALL crossed over to the Western Shores.
7. Iron Man
Most Recent Entry: Iron Man 3 ($1.2 billion worldwide)
It is still hard to believe that a perpetual B-lister like Iron Man, Marvel’s cross between Bruce Wayne and Howard Hughes, is now one of the most valued superhero names in the world. But he is, and there is one man to thank for this above all others: Robert Downey Jr. Once Hollywood’s bad boy of squandered opportunity in the early 2000s, Downey came roaring back. He starred in the brilliant cult comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) and mainstream hit Tropic Thunder (2008), but the role that elevated him from merely being a comeback actor and straight into the A-list with a pulse beam is of course Iron Man.
For the first time in history, people were lining to see a superhero movie for the scenes where he ISN’T in the costume. Both Iron Man and Iron Man 2 made over half-a-billion worldwide, with most of the grosses coming from the U.S. But after Downey’s moustache-sporting alter ego headlined The Avengers, he is now a billion dollar character. And that’s the real beauty of the Marvel Studios system. This is not one franchise, but a single head of a Hollywood Hydra still in its infancy. Iron Man is its own unique franchise—which makes it all the better when he appears in The Incredible Hulk or gives the whole universe a bump when he brings in the largest audience for a total team-up movie. As long as Downey is in the suit, the sky’s the limit. As long as Downey’s in the suit…
6. Transformers
Most Recent Entry: Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($1.1 billion worldwide)
But for some movie franchises, characters, much less actors, are expendable. Look no further than the unstoppable box office juggernaut that is the Transfomers franchise. Based on an ‘80s toy line and cartoon series, the Gen-X nostalgia morphed in the hands of Michael Bay into something big, loud and vastly profitable. Yes, Steven Spielberg’s name is plastered all over these movies as a producer, but at best his influence is only marginally felt in the original 2007 entry, which circled around a boy (Shia LaBeouf) and how getting his first car got him a girlfriend (Megan Fox). This automotive E.T. plot was dropped in the second one, which made a $100 million more in the States despite the near universal panning of the picture. The most recent Transformers was the first in the series to cross $1 billion even though it cut out the much hyped Fox, and next year Bay is releasing a soft reboot with Transformers 4, a film that has completely jettisoned LaBeouf in favor of Mark Wahlberg.
With the advent of 3D ticket sales and an IMAX explosion between the second and third film, the series shows no signs of losing steam. And unlike certain other billion dollar franchises, this one shows that nothing is replaceable beyond the promise of giant CGI robots crashing into buildings. And it is a guarantee that Hollywood can produce that many, many, many more times.
5. Avatar
Most Recent Entry: Avatar ($2.7 billion worldwide)
Beginning the Top Five is the most successful film of all time. While some may have scoffed at director James Cameron promising a technological game-changer following his other most successful film of all time, Titanic, the renowned filmmaker had the last laugh. His blue CGI creations in Avatar are still the most photo-real animated creations to date, but further he paved the way for 3D surcharges to be added on to nearly every big budget movie you have seen in the last four years. Everything is in 3D because Avatar “reinvented” the tech.
Despite what some may critique about the film’s actual innovations, it effortlessly captured the public’s imagination as the 2009 flick coasted through the early 2010 box office, becoming the highest grossing film of all time (with unadjusted inflation). People around the world wanted to get lost in the film’s Pandora, and a fan community dreaming of this picturesque animation popped up overnight. Further, Cameron has finally announced the long-awaited Avatar 2. And he added an Avatar 3 and Avatar 4 to the slate as well. With plans to film them concurrently, a la Peter Jackson, the trilogy of Avatar sequels are slated to open every Christmas between 2016 and 2018. While the initial hype has died down since the original film, hence Cameron also commissioning a series of novels meant to expand the universe beyond the single film before the sequels launch, there is no denying that it still has a hold on people. If each Transformers movie can make more than the last when viewers continue to swear off hating the last one, it appears very likely that Cameron and 20th Century Fox are poised to make AT LEAST $3 billion off the Avatar sequels in the next five years at the multiplexes alone.
Maybe Cameron should have made the aliens green.
4. Batman
Most Recent Entry: The Dark Knight Rises ($1.08 billion worldwide)
However, it is hard to beat the single most lucrative superhero of all time. Avatar may have made nearly $3 billion on one film and has three more entries on the docket, but to paraphrase director Christopher Nolan, they’ll still be making Batman movies after we’re all long dead.
As it turns out, super-powerless Batman has proven to be the most durable cape to ever flap in Hollywood. First (memorably) brought to the screen as a product of camp satire of authority in the 1960s by a grooving Adam West, Batman has been reimagined nearly half a dozen times on the big screen. He has been a creature of near-supernatural weirdness and shadow under Tim Burton, a real life action figure with a nipple fetish under Joel Schumacher, and a haunting parable for our post-9/11 and post-Great Recession World with Christopher Nolan. The last of which is the first superhero run to earn true respect and legitimacy amongst critics and filmmakers alike, even changing the entire Academy Award Best Picture bracket after The Dark Knight’s infamous snubbing.
Yet one year after that iteration of the character concluded, we have another announced for 2015. While hilariously short-sighted fans bemoan the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman, their overreaction only proves how hotly anticipated the return of the Dark Knight truly has become. In fact, the only reason we are seeing Batman again so soon is that Warner Brothers has decided that Superman cannot cut it on his own with a barely adequate $650 million worldwide gross. Now, in our post-Avengers world, it is not hard to imagine the same scenario playing out every time WB has a masked underperformer. “Wonder Woman didn’t cross $800 million? Light the Bat-Signal!”
And so it is that Batman’s inclusion in the still-yet-untitled Batman/Superman project all but ensures another $1 billion+ gross for WB and their pointy-earned night rat. Even if Ben Affleck is actually a total flop as the character, audiences have shown they are always eager for a new interpretation. Isn’t that right, Mr. Clooney?
Like a particular leaden falcon statue, Batman is the stuff box office dreams are made of.
3. The Avengers
Most Recent Entry: The Avengers ($1.5 billion worldwide)
Of course, Marvel Studios has proven that the only thing better than a successful superhero is a successful superhero team. The Avengers may simply have one film out at the moment, but it has single-handidly reinvented how blockbusters and big budget Hollywood tentpoles are made in the 21st century.
Originally a curiosity to the industry that fans waited five years for with baited breath, The Avengers proved that when five films all build to a single event, expectations are through the Helicarrier. Even people who never saw any of the previous Marvel Studios pictures made a showing at their nearest multiplex, helping The Avengers become the first movie to ever cross $200 million in a single weekend. That’s clearly more than walking around money.
The Avengers is not really a franchise: It is the most brilliant form of movie marketing in a generation. In essence, it is the gravitational sun to a slew of other franchises (currently five if one counts next year’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and that number will grow). Hype for the mere existence of this particular solar system causes audiences to wander into all of the “lesser” franchises from their most popular (Iron Man) to their globally most risky (Captain America). Even the one flop in the group, The Incredible Hulk, comes out of the post-eclipse smelling like roses. So much so that moviegoers, who turned up their noses and refused by and large to attend the last two Hulk films, clamor now for the sight of him. Thus each of the smaller movies ultimately serves as a commercial for the others, as well as the larger event, which then in turn advertises the unending sequels.
Like a self-digesting snake, it is a wonder to behold. For the first time, it actually encourages distance and years between each installment. The more (reasonable) length of time between Avengers films allows Marvel to squeeze in as many smaller tentacles to this box office leviathan. For example, Marvel’s “Phase 3” (as sequels now act as waves, instead of individual stories) will feature SEVEN films. We do not even know what three of them officially are, but fans are already excited. And when these bigger franchise films, such as The Avengers, hit...even Asgard will tremble.
2. James Bond
Most Recent Entry: Skyfall ($1.1 billion worldwide)
Strangely though, it is still hard to trump the most profitable franchise model of the 20th century. His name is Bond, James Bond, and he has survived the end of the Cold War. Who the Hell are you to say that he can be topped?
Ian Fleming, a World War II era spook, created 007 to be a product of 1950s Cold War paranoia. But when Cubby Broccoli and Harry Satlzman reimagined him as the ultimate suave alpha male for the 1960s, they really created something timeless. Once upon a time, people were convinced that James Bond could not survive the absence of Sean Connery. Then it was Roger Moore. Sure, Bond has had his rough spots, such as the lukewarm response received by George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton (two Bonds who have since been reevaluated by the fan base). But even the end of the Cold War couldn’t stop him. GoldenEye (1995) and Pierce Brosnan proved that Bond could still work at the turn of the century, and by the time Daniel Craig donned the tux in 2006 for Casino Royale, it felt more like a cozy tradition our culture goes through every year, as opposed to a risky recasting; like seeing how each host country will light the Olympic Torch every several years.
When MGM went under a few years ago, people ran mock-horror stories about this being the end for Bond. However, that seemed about as believable as any one of Ernst Blofeld’s far-out plots. Like all the fans confident in the generational 007 tradition, Sam Mendes and Eon Productions quietly continued production on what would become Bond’s 50th Anniversary film, Skyfall. Coincidentally that is also the first Bond feature to cross $1 billion. And even if it were the last to do so (it won’t be), Bond has proven more durable than any other fictional character not penned by William Shakespeare.
We have seen Bond’s Shaft and Star Wars years with Roger Moore, his Miami Vice and Die Hard missteps with Timothy Dalton, the Face: Off and True Lies era with Pierce Brosnan, and the Bourne and Dark Knight moments featuring Craig. He will shift with whatever cultural trend comes next, but he will always do so with a smirk and finely pressed tuxedo. We can all raise our martini glasses to that.
1. Star Wars
Most Recent Entry: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ($848 million worldwide)
Of course, there is one franchise more valuable than any other at the moment, and it is one that somehow is currently combining the iconography of a 20th century classic with the business model of the 21st. Hello, Star Wars.
A long, long time ago in a franchise far, far away, George Lucas created the ultimate summer movie experience. Star Wars combined it all: science fiction, fantasy, old fashioned romance, screwball comedy, MGM-styled movie magic, cutting edge ILM special effects, and a Wookie. Audiences hadn’t quite seen anything like it, even if they had seen it all before. Hence, they lined up for the film’s two tightly connected and brilliantly told sequels, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
However, something strange happened. The franchise ended. It did not peter out until audiences grew sick of Han, Luke, Leia, and especially C-3PO (nobody ever grows tired of R2D2 or Chewie). It closed the book…but even George Lucas, the first guy to turn his leading lady into a pez dispenser through merchandizing, could not predict the unending demand. Thus, he attempted to quench it with three very mistaken and thoroughly mediocre prequels between 1999 and 2005. Despite mostly talented casts in all three, none of them worked for various reasons. Yet they all made over $800 million. The first, Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace even crossed $1 billion back when that actually meant something. Plus, fans still care. Disappointment after disappointment after disappointment? No matter! They'll always care. When Lucas finally relented and sold the rights of his Star Wars to Disney, they rejoiced. There would be more Star Wars films forevermore.
With Disney’s decision to supersize Star Wars, the franchise will soon become like Starbucks, one will be open on every corner. Disney has announced plans to begin releasing a Star Wars film, whether official “Episode” titles or spin-offs, every year from 2015 until at least 2022. Disney now has the most durable brand of the 20th century and they’re going to Wario Shake It like The Avengers for all its worth over the next decade. However, it is not hard to imagine this box office hustle will last far longer than that.
Some fans of any of the various franchises listed above are sure to point out that only one of six Star Warsfilms has crossed $1 billion. However, that film did so nearly 15 years ago without 3D ticket inflation, IMAX or just regular sky-rocketing ticket prices. In fact, when one considers adjusted ticket inflation, Star Wars is the second most successful film of all time (Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi fill out slots 11th and 15th, high above The Avengers).
It’s Star Wars. Could it be anything else?
So there are the Top 15 Most Valuable Movie Franchises currently running for your bottom dollar. Agree? Disagree? Excited about the whole system? Leave us a comment explaining just so below!
Disqus - noscript
1: Nobody EVER thought that "Man of Steel" was going to hit 900 Billion. No movie ever has.
2: Regarding Avatar: Shouldn't a supposed "franchise" actually have more than one movie in it?
3:
Regarding Ben Affleck: I haven't see all the "fan backlash" that you
spaztards in the media keep talking about. I have, however, seen no
fewer than ten thousand moronic articles explaining why all the supposed
"unhappy fans" are wrong.