The top 10 all-time film franchises

Following up on our wizard talk in Episode 10 of the Podcast on iTunes, here are the top-grossing 5 film franchises of all time. Harry Potter is now the highest grossing film franchise ever, and it is still growing, with yet one more film to come out. Now of course, figures are not relative and in fact the Star Wars franchise has probably grossed more if we are talking today’s price of money, still, Star Wars was initiated light decades before Rowling magiced Harry up.

These figures are for worldwide revenue grossed.

• Harry Potter (6 Films, $6.21 Billion – and still rising)
• Star Wars (6 Films, $5.49 Billion)
• James Bond (23 Films, $3.55 Billion)
• Shrek (4 Films, $2.94 Billion)
• The Lord of the Rings (3 Films, $2.91 Billion)

• Pirates of the Caribbean (3 films $2.68 Billion)
• Batman (6 films $2.63 billion) – Dark Knight $1billion
• Spiderman (3films $2.5billion)
• Indiana Jones (4 films $1.98 billion)
• Ice Age (3 films $1.98 billion)

Addressing the inflation issue:

There are quite a few complications with adjusting for inflation, the main one comes from the studios themselves who put out these numbers. One theory which is most supported is that studios purposefully don’t release the grossing numbers adjusted for inflation because in doing so it would adversely affect their marketing strategies. How many times have you read the headline “*** breaks the record for opening weekend ticket sales”. If inflation were accounted for, this would happen infrequently. It’s all because of the bloody marketing.

Also, if I were including single movies on the list instead of franchises, Avatar would be 6th on the list as it has grossed $2.77 billion alone, but 3D movies have a higher charge for their tickets in cinemas.