10 Movie Franchises I Never Thought Would Last This Long

Summary MCU pioneered expansive movie universes, creating almost two dozen interconnected superhero films in a decade.

Monsterverse capitalized on popular IPs like Godzilla and King Kong, evolving into epic monster stories.

Franchises like Saw, Fast & Furious, James Bond, Transformers, Toy Story, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jurassic Park, and Middle-Earth show Hollywood's obsession with expanding successful movie series.

Movie franchises are taking over Hollywood, with many of these expansive movie universes spanning decades and numerous films. While film series have existed in cinema for almost as long as films themselves, the much more ambitious franchise is a more recent occurrence. Films that had loose connections, such as the Godzilla movies, or horror movies based around a central monster, were expanded into franchises, but most serialized stories rarely exceeded three movies.

However, popular IPs like the MCU then opted to expand their stories to include multiple characters and stories based in the same shared universe. Along with this, older IPs began to be revived and expanded with their stories being extended beyond the original characters, while still being linked in some ways. Now, franchises are everywhere, and many of the highest grossing films of all time are a part of a larger franchise, proving their worth to Hollywood, and ensuring their longevity.

10 MCU

The MCU deserves a special place on this list as it played a major part in making franchises popular. The MCU began in 2008 with Iron Man, but it built on a foundation of many other superhero movies that came before it. However, the MCU was unique in achieving success to the extent that it created almost two dozen movies in the first 10 years, across many smaller individual and connected stories.

The MCU got to a point where many of the films released in Phase 3 were raking in over $1 billion dollars each. Now, with the Infinity Saga ended, there is more discussion about superhero fatigue than ever before, but between the upcoming movie releases and TV shows, it doesn't appear that the MCU is disappearing any time soon. However, it may experience some changes in how it approaches future projects.

Related Every Actor Who Has Played Captain America In The MCU Four actors have played different versions of Captain America in the MCU's live-action and animated adventures, dating back to the start of the MCU.

9 Monsterverse

Following on from the incredible success of the MCU, other studios hoped to mirror the success and looked to their own popular IPs for a way to create a film universe. Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures chose to come together in an effort to capitalize on some of their most popular IPs in a shared universe called the Monsterverse. The Monsterverse revolves around popular creatures from Japanese Kaiju films, primarily Godzilla and King Kong, to tell a series of epic monster stories.

However, the first Monsterverse film, Godzilla, came out in 2014, but this first entry did not necessarily become the smash hit the studios hoped for. However, the studios were persistent and continued to release new films which continued to capture imaginations and excite fans of epic monster brawling films. The stories may not be for everyone, but the action and CGI are widely celebrated as the Monsterverse continues to make plans for its future.

8 Saw

As mentioned above, horror movies tend to do well in franchises, and it often makes sense with a series of films revolving around one central theme or monster. However, the Saw movies were a much later addition to these popular horror franchises, with the first movie releasing in 2004. Many of the most popular horror franchises began in the 70s and 80s, but Saw was a late arrival in the horror franchise space.

Despite the lateness of their arrival, the Saw franchise did manage to become incredibly successful, and expand to include 10 movies so far, with another entry due to arrive in 2025. This is especially impressive considering the main villain of the series was originally due to die shortly after the events of the original film due to his terminal diagnosis. However, the series found new ways to continue and build on the original concepts of the torture and morality games created by the terrible John "Jigsaw" Kramer.

Related 15 Most Sinister Quotes From The Saw Franchise, Ranked Known for its complicated plot twists and intense amounts of gore, here are 15 of the most petrifying sinister quotes from the Saw franchise.

7 Fast & Furious

Vin Diesel became a popular action star in the 2000s when he starred in a new film, The Fast and the Furious, in 2001. However, while the original movie was a success, and proved popular, the sequels took on very different looks in the following years. 2 Fast 2 Furious came out in 2003 and did not see Vin Diesel or Paul Walker return. However, five years after the original came out, Tokyo Drift helped to tie the franchise together with a promise for the future.

The series went on to experience some transitions and changes in the next several years, but these served to make the series more popular as the films became a spectacle which evolved beyond the original concept. Now, the main series is moving towards a possible finale, while spin-offs and adjacent stories are also being set up.

6 James Bond

The Ian Fleming novels rose to popularity shortly after they were released in 1953. In 1962, just 2 years before the death of Fleming, stories about his famous spy, James Bond, began to be adapted for film, with the first actor to don the mantle of 007 being Sean Connery. The series has since produced 27 films, with six different actors playing the lead in that time.

In the more than 60 years since these movies began being made, the longest gap between Bond movies has been six years, which has only occurred twice. Ultimately, the popular British spy has proven to be an icon for decades, with the next Bond who will replace Daniel Craig now being actively recruited to carry the tradition forward.

5 Transformers

Custom image by Simone Ashmoore

Transformers is another series which became popular in Japan in the 70s and 80s before coming to America in 1984. The toys were released alongside popular cartoons which built the lore of these transforming robot aliens from space. Since then, the show has exploded in popularity with many different variants of the original being created over time. Then in 2007, a live-action Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay was released.

Similar to Godzilla and the Monsterverse, the stories can be lacking, but the action and epic scale make it incredibly compelling. Today, there are seven movies released, with new tie-in animated movies on the way and further plans for more live-action projects. This is especially impressive considering the fact that these films have undergone several cast shake-ups and changes over time, but the Transformers keep on taking on new forms and coming back.

Related 8 Hints That Transformers 8 Will Take The Franchise Off Earth For The First Time Transformers 8 could finally be taking the Autobots into the skies in the franchise, with several hints from Rise of the Beasts pointing this way.

4 Toy Story

Disney is obviously a huge corporation, and some of their most successful animated IPs, like Toy Story, have been going on for years. Walt Disney and Pixar's first collaboration, Toy Story, was first released in 1995. The movie quickly became a sensation, with the toys who feature in the film becoming incredibly popular gifts for children to take home their own Woody or Buzz Lightyear. And thanks to the movies' popularity, it led to a sequel just a few years later, in 1999.

Then, the duology remained shelved for years as Disney and Pixar focused on several other projects, but Toy Story remained a pivotal part of their history. Of course, the project was picked up a long awaited third installment was released in 2010, which appeared to neatly close the story of Andy and his toys. However, the story wasn't over for the toys, and there was another sequel released in 2019. Now, several years after that conclusion, yet another entry is coming with Toy Story 5 set to release in 2026.

3 Pirates Of The Caribbean

Sticking with Disney, the ambitious studio at one point chose to create movies based on the rides that appear at the Disney theme parks. This led to the creation of the absolutely massive hit that was Pirates of the Caribbean, which was released in 2003. The movie featured an incredible cast, with an adventurous story, and plenty of fun for the whole family.

Over the course of 15 years, five movies made up the franchise, each including Johnny Depp as the endlessly entertaining Captain Jack Sparrow. However, in 2016, a year before the fifth movie came out, Depp was thrown into a legal battle. Both Disney and Depp parted ways, but despite the exit of the hero from the franchise, Disney is actively working on the next installment.

3:13 Related 8 Actors We'd Love To See In Pirates Of The Caribbean 6 PotC 6 will obviously leave some familiar characters behind, but it also opens the door for new talented actors to join the renewed franchise.

2 Jurassic Park

Custom image by Tommy Lethbridge

Jurassic Park originally came out in 1993 when the first film was released. With the direction of the legendary Steven Spielberg and based on the novel by Michael Crichton, the movie had a lot of incredible talent behind it. Fortunately, it all came together to produce one of the greatest and most loved classic films of the 90s, and inspire a further two sequels in the following eight years.

Then, the series appeared to be over as the trilogy was complete and nothing else was announced for many years. However, almost 15 years later, a brand-new story set in the same universe was released in 2015, starring Chris Pratt in the newly created Jurassic World. This latest trilogy was released over a shorter seven-year span, and since the third movie came out in 2022, a new trilogy expanding the story even further has been announced. The new film is set to release in 2025, and take the story into a new chapter.

1 Middle-Earth

One of the most popular series of fantasy books ever released is The Lord of the Rings stories, which are set in the fictional world of Middle-earth. In 2001, the epic trilogy of books by J. R. R. Tolkien was adapted into an extraordinary trilogy by Peter Jackson. The films were released back to back in 2001, 2002, and 2003. Then, about 10 years later, the franchise was expanded with The Hobbit trilogy, which was also released back to back in 2012, 2013, and 2014.

Since then, the story has also been expanded by an ambitious TV show, The Rings of Power, released on Amazon Prime Video, and the announcement of another set of films releasing starting in 2026. The upcoming films will also have Jackson return as a producer, while Andy Serkis, who provided the voice and motion for Gollum, is set to direct, and is likely to act in the film, given that the working title is The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Which just proves that franchises are still dominating Hollywood as movie universes continue to expand and grow.