Greatest Movie Franchises of All Time

[Brazoo]

Did they? Well, sorry about that. For some reason, I just read the factors were gross sales and Rotten Tomatoes ratings. I totally missed that they adjusted for inflation. I wonder what kept Tarzan out of it? There's been almost 50 Tarzan movies made over the years, and a handful of TV series. That's huge.

Each movie was individually adjusted for inflation, then they based the Box Office Rank on the average gross for the series. That's why the number of movies doesn't matter.

[Brazoo]

The exclusions in these lists always make for a head scratcher. When you talk about "greatness", that is so subjective. You would think the traditional measure would be weighed on their success and longevity. And if your going to talk about 'success', it seems you would have to weigh the actual gross against the expense to make and market these films. A film that grosses $100 million can be substantial if the cost was say $5 million to make. But if a film cost $260 million to make, that tally would be a disaster. And why do the opinions of critics get pulled into this when the popular consensus is to ignore them? That being said, why aren't the Halloween and Friday the 13th films in there? Halloween has had ten films made, while Friday the 13th have made 12. Sure their anything but darlings for the critics. But they don't cost alot of money and generate a huge profit and pull in even more in merchandise sales. Ask John Carpenter if he thinks Halloween is "great".

Exactly! That's actually why I think this list was interesting - it really points out that which factors you choose to base "greatness" on are SO subjective.

The other interesting thing is that I think if we started a thread on here asking people what the greatest film franchises were I think we'd get a list that's actually pretty close to this list - but the order of ranking in this list is all nutzoid.

I wondered about why they only took data from the critics "Tomatometer" poll instead of the audience poll too. Maybe they thought the audience poll was skewed because it's more likely that the people voting only voted when they LOVED or HATED a movie - where critics have to see and rate everything.

The classic "Thin Man" series popped into my head, so I checked out what Rotten Tomatoes had to say about the movies in that series, and none of the movies had enough critics votes tallied to reach consensus yet. So, here's another place where a lack in data for older movies could have skewed things towards more current films.

[Brazoo]

Did they? Well, sorry about that. For some reason, I just read the factors were gross sales and Rotten Tomatoes ratings. I totally missed that they adjusted for inflation. I wonder what kept Tarzan out of it? There's been almost 50 Tarzan movies made over the years, and a handful of TV series. That's huge.

They're saying each movie's gross was adjusted for inflation on it's own.

Once they equalized the gross earnings they calculated an average for the franchise. So one flop would drag a series down. A critical flop could do the same thing.

I have no idea what Tarzan movies made in terms of box office gross, but I don't know if there's a reason to assume that any individual Tarzan movie pulled in gross that would come close to comparing it with a modern blockbuster. They maybe made 50 Tarzan movies because they were not expensive to make - so the net profits was more of a driving factor in keeping that series going than the gross earnings.

I have a feeling that Tarzan movies weren't critical smashes either - and even if the first one was critically liked I have a feeling that by movie 30 critics weren't as excited. That would very much affect the ranking in the way they're setting this list up.

Godzilla was actually the series I thought of when I looked at this list, and I think that's in the same vein. It really shows off what factors are driving the difference between gross and net. So much of the movie industry, conversations and journalism about box office is fixated on gross - but I think this list shows how wonky things get when you think that way.

[palitoy]

[Brazoo]

[huedell]

In a day when lists pass as journalism...

the creative process of writing... whether its journalism or otherwise
is essentially "list" writing... i.e. editing ideas down to what your main
wordage is to express your ideas in as little words as possible....
writing lists is prioritizing ideas.

The articles based on lists certainly seve their journalistic purpose as proved
by the heat on threads such as these.... much discussion can be had.

As far as I can see value in movie franchises as per this list, its a
kind of bang for your buck mentality which puts the "purest" series
in the lead... and its easier to be pure if you have less movies in
your franchise.... less weak links. LOTR and Indy over Batman and Bond.

[spacecaps]

Spy Kids???

I can believe it. I worked in a movie theater when Spy Kids came out and we had the film play for eight months straight. It held a record for our theater for longest running movie without a break.

Ranking movies based on how much money they've made is the dumbest thing ever. Some of the "highest grossing films of all time" have been some of the worst movies I've seen. I know Hollywood is a business and all but for the viewer, it's all about the quality of a film not how much it makes.

[Werewolf]

No mention of Godzilla? There's like 30 of them. That's pretty darn impressive.

[madmarva]

I love movies and talking about movies, and I understand that on some level we all want our thoughts and opinions validated by others, but these types of lists are ultimately as silly as comparing Johnny Unitas to Tom Brady.

It's apples and oranges and as with anything in which criticism, taste and opinion is involved, highly subjective. Also, when you meld the objective, such as box office results, with the subjective such as opinions of critics and try to come up with a rating or ranking, it just doesn't work to anyone's satisfaction. Just ask the college football intelligentsia, who of late must tweak and retweak their way of determining a championship year after year.

Is Lord of the Rings better than Star Wars? In some ways, yes, and in other ways, no.

Tolkein's novels certainly had some influence on Lucas, but without the success of the Star Wars films — opening the door to special effects epics and changing movie making for all time for good or ill — the Lord of the Rings trilogy never would have made it to the screen as a live-action adventure.

So, which is greater? On the whole, I'd say the Lord of the Rings is the better product, but Lucas changed the film, licensing and marketing industries with Star Wars and its two sequels.

The argument could go on forever and that's just considering two franchises.

[RickD]

lethal weapon and die hard

[Brazoo]

No mention of Godzilla? There's like 30 of them. That's pretty darn impressive.

Yeah, I mentioned Godzilla in a previous post when discussing the Tarzan series. It's for sure one of many limitations of the data they were looking at for this list. It tries to gauge consistency of popularity based on each separate movie's gross, then averages them out to find how well the series holds up consistently, movie to movie.

It doesn't take into account that no one Godzilla movie made "Avengers" money, because Godzilla movies are made based on net profitability more than gross, but the total popularity of the brand is still huge.

[Trappy Trek Freak]

Star Trek ranked 33 WTH???????

[megomania]

Was the Porky's franchise on this list?? If not, big big omission...

-Chris

[Mikey]

I didnt click on the link

was charlie Chan on the list ?

[Adam West]

I stopped at 20. The list looked pretty fair and franchises that I would have placed on my list. Maybe not in the same order but I didn't see anything on there that didn't make me think it was completely crazy.