Success is often fleeting in the cutthroat and very fickle world of Hollywood, but the majority of the most popular brands in the business have been around for a long time. If you look at the ten highest-grossing movie franchises in history, for instance, the DCEU is the new kid on the block having only launched in 2013 and currently occupies the tenth slot, while the Marvel Cinematic Universe is way out in front with a combined haul of over $22 billion but is nonetheless the second freshest having existed for just five years longer.
Taking a glance at the rest of the top ten, and next year marks the 20th anniversary of the Wizarding World, Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth and the Fast and Furious series debuting in theaters, and 2022 will bring us the 20th anniversary of Spider-Man’s live-action debut. Meanwhile, Fox’s X-Men stuck around for two decades, Batman’s been starring in movies since 1989, Star Wars exploded into life in 1977 and James Bond goes fifteen years further back than that.
The point is, despite all of these major properties remaining as popular now as they’ve ever been, the ones currently grabbing the headlines tend to be fresher in the memory of fans and more casual audiences, which is probably why a recent survey has seen The Mandalorian voted as the most popular entertainment brand in the United States, given that the Disney Plus show has been dominating the cultural conversation for the last five weeks, and you can check out the full list below.
- The Mandalorian
- The Avengers
- Stranger Things
- John Wick
- Black Panther
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- The Witcher
- Ozark
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
- Black Widow
- Deadpool
- Thor
- Iron Man
- Mario Bros.
- Toy Story
- Doctor Strange
- Spider-Man
- Coco
- The Lion King
- Hamilton
The sample size covered over 350,000 people and 700 multimedia franchises dating back to January 2019, so it remains impressive that The Mandalorian came out on top above such heavy hitters. Of course, if you were to hold the exact same survey twelve months from now, then the results could end up looking markedly different. But for the moment, at least, the D+ show seemingly holds the crown.
