Ever since James Bond fired his Walther PPK and Luke Skywalker flipped on his father’s lightsaber, franchises have been a cornerstone of the movie business. But as theaters still struggle to return to pre-pandemic revenues, how film studios are managing their crown jewel franchises — most of which are multiple decades old — has come under greater scrutiny than ever. “It’s not why anyone wanted to be in this business, to make the 12th version of something,” says one veteran studio executive. With that tension in mind, Variety has launched its first-ever franchise scorecard to assess the overall health of eight of the biggest movie brands.
We looked at several key factors. First, to gauge audience interest, we compared the domestic and global box office grosses of the most recent iterations of each franchise with that franchise’s historic average starting from 2010 — minus the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 (save for “No Time to Die”). To be fair, we also factored in how well the latest films performed in comparison with the overall box office performance of the respective years they debuted, using data provided by Comscore. (For example, 2025 box office is down 17.4% domestically and 10.5% globally against the 2010 to 2024 average.)
Paramount; Universal; Marvel Studios; DC Studios; Lucasfilm; Paramount
Second, to measure cost-effectiveness, we looked at how the most recent iterations have improved on their production budgets, after reaching break even (roughly double global grosses). Finally, we asked nearly two dozen industry professionals — from executives to agents to filmmakers — to score each franchise on a scale of 1 to 10 on three metrics (see chart below): creative health, commercial potential and saturation in the marketplace — which could include other expressions of the franchise, like TV shows and theme parks. The results make clear that while some franchises appear stronger than others, all have at least some room for improvement.
The MCU
Image Credit: Marvel Studios
Box office: ⬇️
Return on budget: ➡️Once the undisputed champ, Marvel released three films this year that all dramatically underperformed compared with their predecessors and barely eked out a profit (and that’s not considering marketing costs). The early-2020s rush to feed streaming shows to Disney+ also earns Marvel the highest market saturation scores of the group. Joining the MCU is “still a crazy, life-changing opportunity,” says one top agent, “but I don’t have as many clients asking to do one as they were five years ago.” Many credit the studio for reducing its output to right the ship, and see the two upcoming “Avengers” movies as, in the words of one exec, “bulletproof,” but “the standalone movies are in trouble, because you feel like you can miss it now.” Subsequently, the MCU’s earning potential has taken a hit. “Any movie could be huge, but nothing is close to a guarantee,” says one director.
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DC
Image Credit: Jessica Miglio / DC Studios
Box office: ⬆️
Return on budget: ↗️Although “Superman,” James Gunn’s first film in the rebooted DC Universe, grossed less globally than 2013’s “Man of Steel,” David Corenswet’s last son of Krypton has blasted past the full breadth of the previous DC regime (especially its lamentable post-pandemic slate) by a considerable margin. “Gunn did the most important thing: The first movie he made was really good,” says one communications exec. “If Batman and Superman are humming at the same time, there’s no limit to what they could do.”
While DC has the second-highest scores for creative health, uncertainty about its 2026 films places its earning potential scores in the middle of the pack. “I wish ‘Supergirl’ and ‘Clayface’ weren’t the next ones,” says another marketing exec. “But it’s a pretty confident first step.”
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Jurassic
Image Credit: Universal / Courtesy Everett Collection
Box office: ↘️
Return on budget: ⬆️“Jurassic World Rebirth” ranks just below “Lilo & Stitch” as the highest-grossing film of the summer, leading to a common refrain (and high scores for earning potential): “Dinosaurs do not seem to be going out of style,” says a distribution exec. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Jeff Goldblum, Chris Pratt or Scarlett Johansson.”
That said, “Rebirth” is the first “Jurassic World” film to gross under $1 billion, and its low creative scores indicate weariness with the dinos-chomping-dumb-humans formula. “They are just remaking the same movie over and over,” says a screenwriter. “It’s almost like a CBS procedural of a blockbuster.” Adds a filmmaker: “The quality’s been all over the map and it doesn’t affect it at all.” Universal’s slower release cadence may help. “They’ve done the most with the least, partly because they’ve made it scarce,” says a producer.
Even so, the “Camp Cretaceous” and “Chaos Theory” animated series on Netflix and the franchise’s omnipresence in the theme parks led to some of the highest market saturation scores. “All you have to do is go to the park to understand how important that franchise is to them,” says an exec.
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Mission: Impossible
Image Credit: Paramount / Courtesy of Everett Collection
Box office: ➡️
Return on budget: ⬇️The grosses for Tom Cruise’s (possibly?) concluding chapter as death-defying superspy Ethan Hunt were on par with the franchise. But the gargantuan $400 million budget leaves “The Final Reckoning” deep in the red — and with unanswerable questions about how the franchise can move forward, dampening all of its scores.
“Its greatest strength is Tom running, but what happens when Tom can’t run anymore?” says one screenwriter. “That franchise is suffering from a generational divide,” says a top exec. “It was an older-skewing audience.” Adds a marketing exec: “It’s tough when you have a franchise hung on a single actor. I’m just not sure how much equity there’s left in that.” Indeed, a Cruise-free “Mission” seems like a nonstarter: “He is the franchise,” says another top exec.
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The Hunger Games
Image Credit: Lionsgate / Courtesy of Everett Collection; Getty Images (2)
Box office: ⬇️
Return on budget: ⬆️The conspicuously lower grosses for 2023’s “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” were more than offset by its relatively lean budget, and many singled out the franchise’s YA roots as an invaluable asset. “You’ve got to incubate a younger audience cyclically to keep the franchise healthy,” says a franchise veteran. Adds a screenwriter: “They have source material that is solid. They have a plan. So many of these franchises don’t.”
The next film, 2026’s “Sunrise on the Reaping” based on the Suzanne Collins best-selling book, boasts an all-star cast — Ralph Fiennes, Elle Fanning, Jesse Plemons, Kieran Culkin, Maya Hawke — as younger versions of prominent “Hunger Games” characters. But the absence of Katniss Everdeen ultimately places this franchise’s scores on the lower end. “They had lightning in a bottle with Jennifer Lawrence,” says a comms exec. “I don’t know that you get that back.”
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Star Wars
Image Credit: Lucasfilm / Courtesy of Everett Collection
Box office: ↘️
Return on budget: ↗️Even though 2026’s “The Mandalorian & Grogu” will be the first “Star Wars” feature since 2019, the saturation scores remain high thanks to the profusion of Disney+ shows and the ubiquity of tie-in games, toys and ephemera. “It is omnipresent,” says one marketing exec. Earning potential is also tied for first — “It should be the biggest franchise of all time,” says one producer — but recurring questions about quality, along with multiple projects stuck in development, had several ranking this franchise worst for creative health.
“When you don’t have a film to show for seven years, that’s just not healthy,” says a comms exec. “And the next example will be a derivative film based on a television show.” Adds the producer: “They stopped making it special; nothing makes me more mad. The sky’s the limit if they could get it right.”
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James Bond
Image Credit: MGM / Courtesy of Everett Collection; Michael Buckner / PMC via Getty
Box office: ↗️
Return on budget: ⬆️Following Daniel Craig’s 2021 swan song, Bond is getting a tip-to-toe reboot with new producers (Amy Pascal and David Heyman), a new screenwriter (Steven Knight) and a new director (Denis Villeneuve) — earning the franchise the highest scores of the group based purely on the pedigree of who’s at the helm. “You’ve got one of the great filmmakers of the modern era,” says one studio exec. “Denis made ‘Dune’ both accessible and profound,” adds a filmmaker. “He could do the same with Bond.” “Tens across the board,” says an agent. “That was the hottest job in town.”
The biggest unknown, of course, is who will play Agent 007. “I’d be a little concerned about getting a young audience, depending on casting,” says a top exec. That actor will be cast in 2026 and the film likely won’t arrive in theaters until 2028, giving Bond the lowest market saturation scores in the group. But with Amazon now at the helm in its joint venture with the Broccoli family, there are many questions about the company’s plans to expand the franchise into new areas. “The scarcity worked in their favor,” says one marketing exec. “But if they start building a Bond universe, does that dilute the brand?”
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Star Trek
Image Credit: Paramount / Courtesy Everett Collection
Box office: ⬇️
Return on budget: ↘️“Star Trek” is about to celebrate its 60th anniversary, yet the franchise, which last graced the big screen with 2016’s “Star Trek Beyond,” has never gone this long between movies. “I’m so sad they haven’t done anything with it,” says an industry veteran. “If David Ellison is smart, this will be a priority.” The abundance of Paramount+ shows, and the apparent box office ceiling for the franchise (its films have never grossed more than $500 million globally) have some wondering if “Trek” should remain “a TV brand.”
One filmmaker points out that J.J. Abrams’ 2009 “Star Trek” reboot “brought this ‘Star Wars’ thrill that you couldn’t get anywhere else,” but that isn’t the case anymore. Still, many are hopeful that a new filmmaker can set “Trek” back to warp speed. Says one top exec: “Someone’s going to have to have a disruptive approach for it to be relevant again.”
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