The World’s Most Popular Movie Franchise Revealed
- A new world map released by FandomSpot reveals Harry Potter is the most popular movie franchise in the world - number one in 75 countries
- Spider-Man is the second most popular franchise - favorite in 68 countries
- Rambo is the third most popular movie franchise, followed by Pokémon and Lego
- Fifty Shades of Grey is the most popular movie franchise in 2 countries - Laos and Egypt
- Star Wars, Jurassic World, and Batman aren’t the favorite franchise of any country
- Check out the research by FandomSpot HERE
June 2021: New research from geek culture site FandomSpot reveals what is the most popular movie franchise in the world based on the biggest number of Google searches.
The world’s most popular franchise revealed
The most popular movie franchise in the world, the favorite in 75 countries, is Harry Potter, the story of an orphan who discovers he’s a wizard. After the success of the book series, Harry Potter spawned eight movies, two plays, a theme park, numerous video games, a movie-making tour, and countless items of merchandise.
Harry Potter is the most popular movie franchise in the US, Canada, and Brazil, as well as a majority of Europe, including countries such as France, the UK, Italy, Germany, and Spain.
Movie Franchise | Number of countries it’s the most popular franchise |
Harry Potter | 75 |
Spider-Man | 68 |
Rambo | 12 |
Pokemon | 6 |
Lego | 4 |
Fifty Shades of Grey | 2 |
Superman | 1 |
Transformers | 1 |
Wonder Woman | 1 |
The Conjuring | 1 |
The runners-up
Not far behind, the second most popular movie franchise in the world is Spider-Man, which is number one in 68 countries including India, Mexico, and Indonesia.
Both Harry Potter and Spider-Man are huge franchises, and two you may expect to make an appearance in a list of the world’s most popular. However, the third most popular franchise in the world is much more unexpected - Rambo.
Rambo, the action series starring Sylvester Stallone, is the most popular movie franchise in 12 countries, including Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Other unexpected appearances - and non-appearances
Rambo isn’t the only unexpected movie franchise to make an appearance in the list. Pokémon is the fourth most popular franchise, top in 6 countries, followed by Lego (4) and - most surprisingly - Fifty Shades of Grey which is the most popular movie franchise in 2 countries: Egypt and Laos.
The most surprising revelation is the omission of some huge franchises, such as Star Wars, Jurassic World, and Batman. While these franchises did rank highly, they just didn’t rank as highly as other franchises.
Alyssa Celatti at FandomSpot.com and movie expert comments:
“We know that Harry Potter and Spider-Man are popular characters and movie franchises, but what’s surprising is just how many fans across the world love these franchises.
More surprising still is that Star Wars isn’t the most popular franchise in a single country, despite the recent success of Star Wars properties such as Galaxy’s Edge and The Mandalorian. This suggests that, following the mixed reception of the sequel trilogy and the disappointing box office return for Solo, that fans are maybe falling out of love with the Star Wars movies.”
You can view the map on FandomSpot here.
To view the complete data on the world’s most popular movie franchise, visit here.
Methodology:
FandomSpot took a seed list of the highest-grossing franchises worldwide in US dollars. Utilising keyword search volume tools, FandomSpot retrieved the average monthly search volumes for the top 100 highest-grossing franchises of all time. From here, FandomSpot was able to determine the most popular franchise in each country based upon the franchise that had the highest monthly search volume. All data was collected on 10/06/2021 and was correct at this time.
Data:
Full data available and assets are available HERE.
About FandomSpot:
FandomSpot is the go-to website for geeky fandoms, from video games to movies to anime—if there’s a fanbase for it, it’s here. Original articles, listicles, and opinion pieces are released every day from passionate, knowledgeable voices within the fan communities.