Had a discussion with two of my friends about this, and want to know you guys' opinions as I respect them and am curious what you think. This is completely off topic from football, but in these days with the boring international break etc. I guess it's fine. Me and my friends landed on this list:

1: Harry Potter
2: Star Wars

3: James Bond
4: Middle Earth
5: Batman
6: Spider-Man
7: X-Men
8: Star Trek
9: Transformers
10: Pirates of the Caribbean

State what you think as well. Take into account everything: amount of fans, commitment of fans, box office, budget, legacy, amount of movies, etc. Especially curious about 1st place.

PS: Don't count Marvel as one franchise as this would just make the list uninteresting; rather separately as one Avengers, one Iron Man, one Captain America, one Thor, etc. Same for Pixar.

And just like tuan said, in Asia SW is not so popular, I think if you make an Asia-only list, SW will not even be in the top 7. On the other hand, HP is HUGE in Asia. And Asia is a pretty big market for movies.

Lord of the Rings?

@lily I think I know why nobody understand Middle Earth include Lord of the Rings, it because its ranked number four in your list and everyone think it say Arsenal. :p

@tdot2barca: I will say one final time: MIDDLE EARTH = LOTR + HOBBIT.

@Emobot: LOL

Harry Potter is bigger everywhere except America. Since America has such a huge market in the film world, Star Wars gets really big automatically, but in the rest of the world it's not on Harry's level. Again:

1: Harry Potter
2: Star Wars

Everyone else

Good time to bring this up, lol.

anyone else here fucking love harry potter?

@ramaboy Meh, I liked the first movie (1,2,3) better than the latter (4,5) and I still need to watch the six and the 2 seven. But yeah, they are very great movie. I'm not really that much in the mood these day, but I used to like them back then.

Already answered the question about who is probably the biggest of them all worldwide (Harry Potter) but...

@ramaboy10, why wouldn't one like Harry Potter? I understand that it's mainstream and everytime a movie came out from 2000-2010 it would be all people talked about and that's depressing if you're not into it, but even a neutral has to admit Harry Potter is an absolutely amazing world.

@ramaboy Read the books 5 times, watched the movies 4 times. Was crazy about HP when I was a child, but now I'm moved on to better thing (read A Song Of Ice and Fire)

Yeah by the way I might have actually misinterpreted what you said @ramaboy10. I thought at first maybe you would look down on people liking Harry Potter, but now I'm sure you meant the opposite. :)

Btw what do people think about the new movie Fantastic Beasts based on the Harry Potter world? Saw the trailer yday, looked very good, will be interesting to see if it is another Hobbit (eg. not as successful as its predeccesor) or if they actually manage to make it as high quality as Harry Potter.

Or we could just look at this:

http://www.filmsite.org/series-boxoffice.html

Just a thought.

@Amerr30,

I have to ask some of you guys. Why do you post links to domestic grossing? Are some of you aware what domestic means? Nobody cares about domestic income. For example, do you want to compare who is biggest of Harry Potter or Star Wars domestically, or WORLDWIDE? Here you go:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films#Highest-grossing_franchises_and_film_series

(I don't care about Marvel on that list.) Even on average of films Harry Potter whips everyone's butts. Nobody's bigger worldwide than Harry Potter, it really is that simple.

Oh, I see. My mistake. I didn't really read the content of your thread at all, nor did I spend any time checking out the link.

I just wanted to be a smart-ass.

Why must you make it so difficult?

Tsk, tsk.

No problem mate. It's just that people tend to look at domestic box office in these discussions because they don't really know the difference between that and worldwide (which I'm sure you know). Surely it's important for the Star Wars makers to see how successful, in other words how much money they made, they were in their base country the US, or for the Harry Potter makers to see how successful they were in the UK.

But in the end, worldwide is what matters, especially in this conversation when discussing which franchise is the biggest of all time on a worldwide basis, in total, overall, as a whole etc...

I'm sure there are others who hasn't seen this thread and will want to contribute. Wonder if the Harry Potter and Star Wars spin-offs might give a shift in this discussion, say make Harry Potter the far biggest or Star Wars the far biggest?

While I agree with everyone that Harry Potter and Star Wars for sure take up the two first places, I don't agree with a few here who are actually arguing that Star Wars is bigger.

Anyone who lived anywhere else than in the US/Canada the weeks before the last Harry Potter film came out will know how massive Harry Potter is. I was on vacation in Brazil the day before the movie premiered in theatre there and I remember so well there were people walking down the main street wearing wizarding clothes with capes, hats and holding wands in their hands. The amount of attention it got in media too was something no film since has matched. It was comparable to the current US presidential election.

@Lilywhite Well those two aren't really comparable. While the Star Wars spinoff is actually a story revolving around all the previous films and very much contributes to the Star Wars story, the Harry Potter spinoff is a new franchise in a way with new characters etc. The only characters from the Harry Potter universe rumoured to be in the spinoff are Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and it won't be the same actors, obviously, as it is set several decades before Harry Potter's story.

Though when they count box office, it will surely go under the Harry Potter Universe (as will the Star Wars spinoff obviously, it even has "Star Wars" in the title name) just like they did with Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, putting them together under the term Middle Earth.

@Cristiano

It's confirmed already that Fantastic Beasts will be counted as Harry Potter in the box office, so in other words it will only boost Harry Potter's 1st place on the ranking. And it's not just Dumbledore from the original franchise, it's pretty much the whole directing, production and writing team, including:

• Same director
• Same producer
• Same screenwriter
• And of course: JK ROWLING!

Just watched Fantastic Beasts in a packed theatre full of Harry Potter fans wearing Hogwarts clothes, glasses and wands. Incredible atmosphere. The film was absolutely amazing and stood so well on its own.

No wonder this film is projected to earn the most of any film in 2016 and could even top/get close to the Harry Potter films. The moments where they mentioned Harry Potter things gave goosebumps. Excited for more.

@Lilywhite Good for you Lily, will propably try to watch the movie at some point. Timeline wise, does the story take place after or before the other Harry Potter? I still haven't watched the last few movies you see. XD (I'm a terrible HP fan but at least I know it...)