idea of the week

Hollywood is enamored with the franchise. A profitable one can sustain sequels across multiple decades that are worth billions of dollars in ticket sales alone. But, as the box-office ups and downs of the “Star Trek” films have shown, the formula is far from a guarantee. We’ve charted a part of the expanding galaxy of movie series, ranking them by franchise gross, per-movie gross, and franchise profitability.

All box-office numbers are worldwide and adjusted for inflation.

Profitability is franchise gross as a per cent of budget.