Cinema's Biggest Grossing Franchises

17 July 2008

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It seems that Hollywood can't get enough of sequels creating franchises that fans can enjoy over and over again, oh and making a load of money in the process.

Take this summer for example Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was the fourth Indy movie to be released, The Dark Knight is Batman's sixth big screen outing and unexpected franchise success The Mummy is also returning for a third outing in August.

Iron Man has also shown it's major franchise potential as it smashed box office expectations, becoming one of the biggest grossing movies of the summer, and a second movie has already been announced and will be released in 2010. Wanted, which starred James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie is also rumoured to be getting a sequel.

Some of cinema's most successful movies in recent years have come from a franchise including Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek and Lord of the Rings so here at FemaleFirst we searched for the top ten grossing film franchises of all time.

In September 2007 the literary phenomena that is Harry Potter became the biggest grossing film franchise of all time.

Not merely content with making stars of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, the collection of, so far, six movies has grossed a massive $4.47 billion at the global box office.

The November sees the franchise grow further as Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince reaches cinemas and with the final movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the franchise looks set to extend it box office dominance.

With the boy wizard's promotion to the top spot long standing number one Star War had to make way slipping to number two.

Number three James Bond may have the greatest number of films in it's franchise at a whopping twenty one but it could only manage to be number three grossing $3.32 billion since Sean Connery uttered those famous words 'The name's Bond, James Bond' way back in 1962.

However despite not being number one given the massive number of movies advantage the franchise has over the rest 007 is in very safe, and so far successful hands, of Daniel Craig.

A very controversial choice on casting Craig silenced all of his doubters and critics with the release of Casino Royale in 2006 when it became the highest grossing of the series. The new film Quantum of Solace, due in October is one of the most highly anticipated films of the year.

It's good news that Peter Jackson didn't take any notice of the doubters that said his plan to make all three movies back to back and adapting such a long and complex novel couldn't be done as he has produced the fourth biggest grossing film series of all time.

Shooting many of the film's cast to stardom the films dominated the box office for three consecutive Christmases and Return of the King went on to be the second biggest grossing movies of all time.

With a total gross of $2.91 billion Lord of the Rings is the second fantasy series to make in into the top five and novel The Hobbit is currently in the pipeline.

Rounding off the top five is a second appearance for Orlando Bloom as Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was an unexpected success when it was released in 2003.

Johnny Depp created one of the biggest cinema icons of the last decade with Captain Jack Sparrow as he did the first sequel of his career with Dead Man's Chest.

The second movie proved to be the most successful picture of the franchise as it grossed over $1 billion, becoming the third highest grossing film in history.