Last updated on September 1st, 2024
Awhile ago, I looked at Warner Bros.’s 10 top franchises by revenue, with the top earner being the “Harry Potter” franchise (via the WB-released movies). Which led me to wonder what the top media franchises were for other media conglomerates.
In that spirit, below is a look at what the 10 top-grossing franchises are for Disney. Information is taken from Wikipedia (though each entry’s sourced), thus some of the listings overlap. Note some of these include revenue earned before Disney bought the franchise in question, but they’re listed here anyway for simplicity. There are also gaps in some of the years for some info (such as merchandise sales), so the actual figures for those franchises might be even higher. Figures also aren’t adjusted for inflation. Still, it gives a rough idea of Disney’s biggest money-makers.
The top 10 Disney franchises
- Mickey Mouse & Friends: $52.2 billion
- Winnie the Pooh: $48.5 billion
- Star Wars: $46.7 billion
- Disney Princess: $45.4 billion
- Marvel Cinematic Universe: $29.7 billion
- Spider-Man: $25.4 billion ($1.5 billion from Sony’s films’ box office)
- Cars: $21.5 billion
- The Lion King: $15.2 billion
- Toy Story: $14.8 billion
- The Avengers: $14.3 billion
Observations
Overall, most of Disney’s biggest earners come from companies the Mouse House bought in recent decades, including Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. However, the biggest earner is its original franchise, “Mickey Mouse & Friends.” That’s Disney’s official branding for media/merchandise related to Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and company, from “Steamboat Willie” to “DuckTales” to “Uncle Scrooge” comics. I note nearly all of this figure, $51.66 billion, comes from “retail sales,” i.e. merchandise. “Mickey Mouse & Friends” is also the second highest-earning franchise on Wikipedia’s page, after “Pokemon.”
At #2 is Disney’s version of “Winnie the Pooh.” Despite Pooh finally entering public domain this year, Disney still owns the copyright on their version of the “silly old bear,” and are free to keep pulling in merchandise revenue.
Several of these entries overlap: “Marvel Cinematic Universe” (#5), “Spider-Man” to an extent (#6), and “The Avengers” (#10). Of course, Spider-Man is still Marvel’s flagship character, despite the Avengers’ boom in popularity over the past dozen or so years. It’s also unclear if or how much the original comics factor into any of these figures.
“Cars” is a merchandising boom for Disney/Pixar. The $21.5 billion figure is almost all from merchandise ($19.1 billion), which explains why they kept making “Cars” films (despite mixed reviews).
As for how Disney itself is doing as a conglomerate, while they clearly have problems, their current market cap is (as of this writing) $188 billion, almost 10 times that of longtime rival Warner Bros. (at $19.7 billion). The Mouse House isn’t going anywhere.
Image, left to right: “Steamboat Willie”; “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”; “The Princess and the Frog.” (Disney)
Wait a minute. Winnie the Pooh pulls in more money than Star Wars or Marvel?
If anything, Pooh’s merchandising figure (what made up nearly that entire amount) likely was all or almost all earned under Disney. Versus Disney only owning Star Wars/Marvel (and earning money off those) within the past 15 or so years.