Read this before the big numbers get comfortable. The figures below are nominal estimates of what audiences spent, compiled by Wikipedia's editors from press and trade sources over many years. They are not profit, not a company valuation, and not cash paid to the rights holder. A very large number can still be answering a different question than the one you meant to ask. Data vintage: Wikipedia revision 1384334611, timestamp 7 November 2026, read 10 November 2026. Box office is Box Office Mojo the same day, with The Numbers beside it. Disney's segments are the fiscal year ended 27 September 2025. [S017; S005; S019; S093]
Five findings, each with a date on it:
- Merchandise, licensing and retail are 55.6% of the list (range 43.2–65.8). [S017]
- Pokémon's row, $130.7 billion, is larger than Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe added together, $84.2 billion. [S017]
- Five first-listed parents account for 58.3% of the list (range 52.3–72.7). Disney alone is 29.5%. [S017]
- US-origin rows now sum to more than Japan-origin rows ($825.5 billion vs $394.5 billion). Japan's merchandise share is the higher one, 71.4% to 51.5%. [S017]
- Nine of the ten biggest 2025 films worldwide were franchise installments. In 2026, so far, six of ten are. The denominator is ten films, and 2026 is not finished. [S005]
Narration placeholder. The player on this page is the existing Kore recording, 27 minutes 3 seconds, file /audios/franchise-kore-v4.mp3. It reads the October article. This November text has not been re-rendered. Please do not treat the audio as a reading of the paragraphs below.
How does Pokémon end up this large?
Pokémon is listed at $130.7 billion. Star Wars is $46.7 billion and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is $37.5 billion. Add those two film-world rows and you get $84.2 billion. You can bring a space station and a team of superheroes. On this list, the merchandise still needs counting. [S017]
Pokémon against Star Wars and the MCU combined
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Pokémon is listed at $130.7 billion. Star Wars ($46.7 billion) and the Marvel Cinematic Universe ($37.5 billion) add up to $84.2 billion. It matters because it shows how much a game, card and merchandise franchise can outweigh two film-led ones on a list of lifetime consumer spending.
Across 140 properties the stated lifetime total is $1,460.1 billion. That is $12.0 billion more than the 12 October revision, and the whole of the increase is two rows, which we will come to. Mickey Mouse & Friends follows Pokémon at $61.2 billion, then Winnie-the-Pooh at $50.2 billion, Star Wars, and Disney Princess at $45.4 billion. The small bear did not wait for a cinematic universe to get organised. [S017]
Pokémon began in 1996 with Game Freak and Nintendo. Games, animation, cards and other products give people more than one way to stay with the same characters. That is a fair description of the system. It is not proof that every viewer becomes a card buyer. Jenkins's Convergence Culture describes stories moving across formats. Steinberg's Anime's Media Mix describes how Japanese animation and character goods grew up together. Japan's production committees can put publishers, broadcasters and toy makers into the same rights arrangement. [Jenkins, 2006; Steinberg, 2012; Hernández Hernández, 2018]
Disney takes another route, through parks, resorts, cruises and shops. Different arrangements, more than one place to spend money. Neither story requires us to assume that anyone is being fooled. People can love the story and also want the toy.
The film ends. The shopping does not.
The list puts merchandise, licensing and retail at $812.4 billion, video games at $268.2 billion and box office at $265.3 billion. Another $27.2 billion, about 1.9%, is in the totals without an itemised breakdown. [S017]
Where the list's lifetime spending comes from
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Merchandise, licensing and retail are 55.6% of the list ($812.4 billion), video games 18.3% ($268.2 billion) and box office 18.1% ($265.3 billion). The bars carry 95% ranges, and the ranges for games and box office overlap, so neither can be called the runner-up. It matters because most of the money on this list is not ticket sales.
Since October the point estimates have swapped: games now sit a hair above box office. The ranges still swallow that gap. Resampling the franchises 5,000 times tells you the result depends on which rows are in the list. It does not certify Wikipedia's underlying estimates, and it does not make merchandise, games and ticket sales economically independent of one another. A toy can be the thing the film was for. [S017]
The fifteen largest franchises on the list
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Pokémon leads at $130.7 billion, followed by Mickey Mouse & Friends ($61.2 billion), Winnie-the-Pooh ($50.2 billion), Star Wars ($46.7 billion) and Disney Princess ($45.4 billion). The figures are lifetime estimates of consumer spending, not profit. It matters because the top of the list is mostly character franchises with long merchandise lives.
Did Hello Kitty really lose billions?
Not in the sense that sentence suggests. The 2019 file listed Hello Kitty at $80.0 billion. The November list says $33.5 billion. Mario went from $35.0 billion to $9.74 billion, and Gundam from $25.5 billion to $5.0 billion. Those rows did not move between 12 October and 7 November. The change is the long edit between the 2019 file and the current list, which this article has treated as revised sourcing rather than a reported collapse at Sanrio or Nintendo. [S001; S017]
Three big edits between the 2019 file and the November list
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Hello Kitty went from $80.0 billion in the 2019 file to $33.5 billion on the November list. Mario went from $35.0 billion to $9.74 billion and Gundam from $25.5 billion to $5.0 billion. These are revised estimates on Wikipedia, not reported collapses at Sanrio or Nintendo, so they should not be read as a change in what people bought.
The 2019 baseline is TidyTuesday's 2 July file: 103 franchises, audited against Wikipedia revision 904026364, which really is 29 June 2019. A hand-mapped crosswalk has 103 rows, and 82 of them have a usable total in both vintages. These are not two identical baskets watched for seven years. [S001; S007]
Among paired rows, Pokémon rises from $90.9 billion to $130.7 billion, a difference of $39.8 billion. Naruto rises by about $13.9 billion. Call of Duty rises from $17.0 billion to $40.0 billion, a difference of $23.0 billion, and most of the new part of that story is below. Call these revenue growth only where the crosswalk says the scope matches. [S001; S017]
The audit drew 40 franchises from the old file with seed 20261012. Thirty-nine matched the June 2019 page. Of those, 28 were within 10% of the Wikipedia headline, and 5 were within 1% of the itemised breakdown. The old spreadsheet was not an immaculate starting point either. We re-ran that check. The 28 of 39 is still the result. [S001; S007]
Box office's share of the list moves from 8.9% in the 2019 file to 18.1% now, and a lot of that is fuller itemisation plus a different basket, not a sudden change in what people buy. [S001; S017] The companion piece keeps the revision log: What changed when we fixed the data.
Percent change from the 2019 file to the November list
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Six paired franchises are shown. Pokémon rises from $90.9 billion to $130.7 billion and Call of Duty from $17.0 billion to $40.0 billion, while the downward bars are source edits. It matters because the 2019 and 2026 baskets are not identical, so a bar is revenue growth only where the crosswalk says the scope matches.
What moved since October?
We re-parsed the list. Same 140 names. Two stated totals changed. Call of Duty went from $31 billion to $40 billion. Paw Patrol went from $15.4 billion to $18.4 billion. Everything else in the comparison, including Pokémon, held still. [S017]
What moved between the October and November readings
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Only two stated totals changed. Call of Duty went from $31 billion to $40 billion and Paw Patrol from $15.4 billion to $18.4 billion, which is the whole $12.0 billion rise in the list total. It matters because every other row, including Pokémon, held still.
Call of Duty's new row is a single video-game line of $40 billion. IGN reported on 26 October 2026 that the franchise had surpassed $40 billion in lifetime revenue, quoting a public note from Xbox. "Surpassed" is a threshold, and the list rounds it to $40 billion. It is not an itemised audit. [S094; S017]
Paw Patrol's retail line is on firmer ground than the row's total. Deadline, 28 October 2026, says the franchise has $18 billion in lifetime retail, in a story about a fourth film. The Wikipedia row then adds a box-office line of $373.7 million and a home-media line of $39 million, both cited to The Numbers pages with access dates in 2024 and 2023, and prints $18.4 billion. The same Deadline story says one of the films grossed more than half a billion dollars worldwide, which does not sit neatly under that older box-office line. We keep the list's stated $18.4 billion in the sum, and we do not pretend the extra $0.4 billion was freshly checked. [S095; S017]
Is Japan the franchise giant, or is the United States?
On this list, US-origin franchises have the larger total. Japan-origin franchises have the higher merchandise share. That is narrower than declaring a winner between two national industries, which this dataset cannot do. [S017]
- United States$825.5B
- Japan$394.5B
- United Kingdom$136.1B
Korea is $27.0 billion, Sweden $26.3 billion and Canada $23.1 billion. Canada's sum was $20.1 billion in October. The difference is Paw Patrol, which is coded to Canada, and it carries the caveat in the previous section. [S017]
Lifetime revenue by region of origin
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United States-origin franchises total $825.5 billion across 88 rows, Japan-origin $394.5 billion across 30 rows, and United Kingdom-origin $136.1 billion across 9 rows. Each label carries the region's merchandise share: 51.5% for the United States, 71.4% for Japan and 53.9% for the United Kingdom. It matters because the larger total and the higher merchandise share belong to different regions.
The 2019 file had the totals the other way around: Japan $681.5 billion, the United States $622.6 billion, and the merchandise shares the other way too, 49.1% for Japan and 64.6% for the United States. Countries did not swap business models while a CSV was downloading. The basket changed. [S001]
An earlier draft of this article said 43 additional US-origin properties. The crosswalk does not support 43. It marks 45 US-origin rows on the November list that have no 2019 row, including Fortnite, Avatar, Madden NFL, Scooby-Doo and The Sims, and also separate rows for Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and Black Panther. Japanese additions are fewer, five rows, and several large Japanese estimates were revised down. English-language Wikipedia is not a census of world culture. [S001; S017]
Region here means the creator's home market at launch, not where the money was spent. The rebuilt MCU row can be mostly theatrical while Pokémon, Anpanman and Hello Kitty pull Japan's merchandise share up. Some of those character rows sit beside the MCU row, so adding every hero's row to the MCU total would count the same affection twice. [S017]
Does it matter whether a franchise starts as a game, a comic or a film?
Yes, a little. The debut format is not a complete business plan. The charts in this section use the 2019 file, and they say so, because we did not rebuild every historical cut on the November list. [S001]
Lifetime revenue by first format, 2019 file
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Game-origin rows sum to $334.9 billion and manga-origin rows to $253.8 billion in the 2019 file. This chart uses the 2019 baseline, not the November list. It matters because a franchise's first format is one clue to where its money comes from, though not a complete business plan.
Revenue mix within each first format, 2019 file
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The same 2019 totals are drawn again to show how each first format's revenue splits across categories. The date is repeated on purpose, because these shares are not the November 2026 shares. It matters because a skimming reader should not paste these splits onto the current list.
Box office as a share of each franchise, 2019 file
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For twelve franchises, the chart shows how much of each 2019 row was box office. The Marvel Cinematic Universe row is 67.7% box office, and several famous rows are close to none. It matters because a franchise can be famous for films and still earn most of its money elsewhere.
Average revenue per year of life, 2019 file
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Each bar divides a franchise's 2019 lifetime revenue by the years since it was created. It is an average across a whole life, not a year of revenue and not a growth rate. It matters because it lets young and old franchises be compared on one scale, with that limit in mind.
Wizarding World started with books and then became films and merchandise. Its existence does not mean any successful novel can support endless films. The later Fantastic Beasts films are a reason to ask about execution, not a reason to blame the original medium.
How much of the table sits with Disney?
First decide what "Disney" includes. On the 2019 file, the owner string "The Walt Disney Company" sums to $259.0 billion. Roll in the subsidiaries the way our rule does and the same file sums to $426.2 billion. The standalone Nintendo label, which does not include the Pokémon Company string, is $49.0 billion. Leaving the rooms uncounted is a good way to lose the house. Combining them still needs a rule, especially when rights are shared. [S001]
2019 owner totals, subsidiaries left separate
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Counting only rows whose owner field reads "The Walt Disney Company", Disney sums to $259.0 billion in the 2019 file. The standalone Nintendo label sums to $49.0 billion and does not include the Pokémon Company string. It matters because leaving subsidiaries uncounted makes the biggest owner look much smaller.
2019 owner totals, Disney subsidiaries rolled together
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Rolling Marvel, Lucasfilm and Fox rows into Disney, the same 2019 file sums to $426.2 billion. The roll-up follows a stated rule and is not a legal ownership audit. It matters because the same data gives very different owner totals depending on how acquisitions are counted.
On the November 2026 list, the same style of first-listed parent puts Disney at $430.7 billion, 29.5%, with a range of 18.0–42.9. The top five are 58.3%, range 52.3–72.7. [S017]
- Disney$430.7B
- Warner Bros. Discovery$133.0B
- The Pokémon Company$130.7B
- Microsoft$84.2B
- Paramount Skydance$72.8B
The five largest parent companies, November 2026
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Disney is $430.7 billion, Warner Bros. Discovery $133.0 billion, The Pokémon Company $130.7 billion, Microsoft $84.2 billion and Paramount Skydance $72.8 billion. Together the five hold 58.3% of the list. It matters because a few rights holders sit behind most of the listed spending, on a first-listed-parent rule that is not a legal ownership audit.
The 2019 file, with today's parent labels, put the top five at 62.8% in one of our checks and 46.4% before that roll-up. Consolidation changes the answer. None of this means a company earned every dollar historically spent on a character it now controls. Spider-Man's merchandise and film rights connect Disney/Marvel and Sony in different ways. Pokémon's row sits with The Pokémon Company; Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures share the copyright. Adding $130.7 billion to Nintendo's old $49.0 billion label would mix dates and pretend the rights were simpler than they are. [S001; S017]
For Warner, the November list's DC rows are Batman $29.9 billion, Superman $8.2 billion and the DC Extended Universe $8.0 billion. The sum is $46.1 billion. That sum is three rows on the 2026 list (S017), not a total from the 2019 file. An earlier version of this paragraph pointed the 2026 figure at franchise.csv, which is the 2019 file. That citation was wrong, and it is withdrawn. The 2019 DC sum, same three names, is $44.4 billion (S001). Wizarding World, $35.1 billion, is a separate Warner row. These groupings are not a clean, non-overlapping corporate account. [S017; S001]
What did those billions buy?
The filed prices we checked are Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 billion, Marvel in 2009 for about $4.0 billion, Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4.05 billion, and 21st Century Fox in a June 2018 exhibit for $71.3 billion in cash and stock. The exhibit's own headline uses those words. This article does not re-label that figure as enterprise value. [S009, S010, S011, S012]
What Disney paid in four filed deals
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The filed prices are Pixar in 2006 ($7.4 billion), Marvel in 2009 (about $4.0 billion), Lucasfilm in 2012 ($4.05 billion) and 21st Century Fox in a June 2018 exhibit ($71.3 billion in cash and stock). The bars show price only. It matters because acquired characters are part of why ownership on the list is concentrated.
The 2019 franchise row beside each deal
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Each deal is paired with one anchor row from the 2019 file: Toy Story $19.54 billion, the Marvel Cinematic Universe $31.0 billion, Star Wars $63.0 billion and The Simpsons $13.5 billion. A purchase price is not lifetime consumer spending, and the Fox deal also covered cable, a Hulu stake and a library. It matters because the two numbers answer different questions and should not be read as a return.
A purchase price is not lifetime consumer spending. Putting them near each other does not produce a return, and it does not tell us whether a deal was cheap. It starts a question about what the buyer thought it was buying.
Disney's own reporting answers a different question, an annual one. For the year ended 27 September 2025, the Form 10-K segment table shows Entertainment revenue of $42.466 billion, Sports $17.672 billion and Experiences $36.156 billion. The same table's prior-year column is $41.186 billion, $17.619 billion and $34.151 billion, which is the FY2024 set this article used to cite. The earnings exhibit filed the same day repeats the FY2025 table. FY2026's 10-K was not on file as of 10 November 2026. The latest quarterly report then on file covered the quarter ended 27 June 2026, and we do not annualise it. [S093; S081]
Disney segment revenue, fiscal 2025
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For the year ended 27 September 2025, Disney reported Entertainment revenue of $42.466 billion, Sports $17.672 billion and Experiences $36.156 billion. These are annual segment figures, not lifetime totals from the Wikipedia list. It matters because Experiences includes parks, resorts, cruises and merchandise, which is where a character's shelf life meets Disney's own accounts.
These are annual segment revenues, not Wikipedia lifetime totals. The FY2024 chart remains available under its old filename, labeled as FY2024, so the old address does not silently change year. [S093; S004]
Why do the biggest films look familiar?
The domestic coding, which counts titles rather than ticket dollars, runs from 60% franchise entries in the 2010 top ten to 80% in 2019 and 90% in 2024. We did not recode 2025's domestic chart in this pass, so the line stops at 2024 on purpose. [S005]
Franchise share of the domestic top ten, by year
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Counting titles rather than ticket dollars, franchise entries were 60% of the domestic top ten in 2010, 70% in 2015, 80% in 2019 and 90% in 2024. The line stops at 2024 because 2025 was not recoded. It matters because it shows how familiar the biggest films have become, without saying why.
Worldwide, we stopped using the Wikipedia film tables as the dollar source. The 10 November 2026 revision of "2026 in film" prints The Super Mario Galaxy Movie as $1,013,2447,550, which is not a readable amount. Box Office Mojo, read the same day, has the film at $1.013 billion. The Numbers has $1.013 billion as well. The Wikipedia cell is flagged and unused. [S005; S019]
For 2025, the trackers do not agree on Ne Zha 2. Wikipedia's 4 November revision still says $2.318 billion. Box Office Mojo says $2.271 billion. The Numbers says $2.004 billion. We do not average them. The count is sturdier than the dollars: on both Box Office Mojo and The Numbers, nine of the ten biggest 2025 films fit this article's coding, and F1 is the one that does not. The share of that top ten is 94.3% on Box Office Mojo and 94.2% on The Numbers. The October article's 94.4% used the Wikipedia table. It is retired. [S005; S019; S091]
Three published grosses for one film
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Ne Zha 2 is $2.318 billion on Wikipedia, $2.271 billion on Box Office Mojo and $2.004 billion on The Numbers. We report all three and do not average them. It matters because the count of franchise films in a top ten is sturdier than the dollars.
For 2026, read 10 November, both trackers have the same ten films in the same order and the same six-of-ten franchise count. The share of top-ten gross is 61.9% on each. That is not 61.9% of all worldwide box office. The denominator is ten films, and several of them are still in theatres. "Original" here means not coded as a sequel, prequel, spin-off, remake or shared-universe installment. The Odyssey, Michael, Project Hail Mary and Obsession are the four originals under that rule. It does not mean the screenplay had no earlier source. [S005; S019]
The 2026 worldwide top ten so far
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Six of the ten biggest 2026 films are franchise installments (red) and four are originals under our coding (blue), which is 61.9% of top-ten gross on both trackers. Spider-Man: Brand New Day leads at $2.52 billion. It matters because 2026 is unfinished and the denominator is only ten films.
Recognition may help explain why studios return to familiar titles. These rankings do not measure marketing savings, and they do not prove why a film succeeded.
Can a familiar name still miss?
Owning a recognisable character does not make the next release work. The case list points at Universal shelving the Dark Universe after The Mummy (2017), the Fantastic Beasts films falling short of Harry Potter's peaks, DC's changes before the 2023 DC Studios reset, the reception of Ghostbusters (2016), and the changing fortunes of Angry Birds. Links are in franchise_failures.csv. [S013; S015]
Those cases are invitations to look, not a single cause called franchise fatigue, and not a moral about discipline. A lifetime total does not say whether the latest release made money. The spreadsheet remembers past success. Audiences are under no obligation to renew it.
What this means if you own or market an IP
This section is for brand, licensing and marketing teams. It turns the figures above into questions to ask and cautions to keep. It uses only numbers already in this report, and it is not advice on any single deal. [S017]
Ownership is concentrated, so check who sits behind a property
On the November list, Disney is the first-listed parent for $430.7 billion, 29.5% of the list (range 18.0–42.9). The top five parents are 58.3% (range 52.3–72.7). [S017]
Part of that concentration was bought. The filed prices we checked are $7.4 billion for Pixar in 2006, about $4.0 billion for Marvel in 2009, $4.05 billion for Lucasfilm in 2012, and $71.3 billion in cash and stock for 21st Century Fox in a 2018 exhibit. [S009, S010, S011, S012] On the 2019 file, the owner name "The Walt Disney Company" alone summed to $259.0 billion. With the subsidiaries rolled in, the same file sums to $426.2 billion. [S001] A name on a character can understate who controls it.
- Check the rights holder for the specific property, not the studio name. Rights are sometimes shared. Spider-Man's film and merchandise rights connect Disney/Marvel and Sony in different ways, and Pokémon's copyright is shared by Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures. [S017]
- Ask how the holder's other properties overlap your category. Five parents sit behind 58.3% of the list, so a licensor with a large portfolio is a normal case, not an exception. [S017]
- Treat an acquisition as a change in who you deal with. It is not evidence that the property will sell the way it did before. A purchase price is not lifetime consumer spending, and buying a company does not retroactively earn the money audiences once spent on its characters. [S009, S010, S011, S012]
- Quote the counting rule with the share. On the 2019 file with today's parent labels, the top five were 62.8% in one of our checks and 46.4% before the roll-up. Consolidation changes the answer. [S001]
Merchandise is the main engine, but it works differently in different places
Merchandise, licensing and retail are $812.4 billion, 55.6% of the list (range 43.2–65.8). Video games are 18.3% and box office 18.1%, and those two ranges overlap. [S017] Pokémon's $130.7 billion row is larger than Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe added together, $84.2 billion. [S017]
By origin, the 30 Japan-origin franchises total $394.5 billion with a merchandise share of 71.4%. The 88 US-origin franchises total $825.5 billion with 51.5%. The nine UK-origin franchises are $136.1 billion at 53.9%. [S017] We read the gap as two merchandising styles, not two national industries. Pokémon, Anpanman and Hello Kitty pull Japan's share up, while the MCU row can be mostly theatrical. [S017] Steinberg describes Japanese animation and character goods growing up together, and Japan's production committees can put publishers, broadcasters and toy makers into one rights arrangement. [Steinberg, 2012; Hernández Hernández, 2018] Disney's own filing shows a different route: for the year ended 27 September 2025, Experiences, which includes parks, resorts, cruises and merchandise, was $36.2 billion beside Entertainment at $42.5 billion. [S093]
- Decide which style your property is closer to before you benchmark. A character-led property, where the goods are much of the product, should not be measured against a story-led property using one 55.6% figure. [S017]
- Do not credit merchandise to a single campaign or film. The list counts toys, games and tickets separately, but they are not independent of each other. A toy can be the thing the film was for. [S017]
- Do not turn 71.4% and 51.5% into national traits. Region means the creator's home market at launch. The basket also changed: the crosswalk marks 45 US-origin rows on the November list that have no 2019 row. [S017; S001]
What the data cannot tell you
- It is not profit. The figures are nominal estimates of consumer spending, compiled by Wikipedia's editors. They are not profit, not a company valuation, and not cash paid to a rights holder. [S017]
- The ranges are wide. Disney's share runs 18.0–42.9 and the top five's 52.3–72.7. The ranges show how much a share depends on which rows are on the list. They are not sampling error, and they do not certify the underlying estimates. [S017]
- The estimates move. Between 12 October and 7 November, Call of Duty went from $31 billion to $40 billion and Paw Patrol from $15.4 billion to $18.4 billion, which is all of the list's $12.0 billion rise. [S017] Hello Kitty's row went from $80.0 billion in the 2019 file to $33.5 billion, a revised row, not a reported collapse at Sanrio. [S001; S017]
- Small groups swing. Canada's two franchises sum to $23.1 billion with a 77.9% merchandise share, and Sweden's three sum to $26.3 billion with 12.8%. One row changes either figure. [S017]
- A lifetime total says nothing about the next release. The list has no royalty rates, licence terms, margins or campaign results, and a famous name can still miss. [S013; S015]
Before you quote a number from this report, give its vintage (the Wikipedia revision and the date we read it), give the range, say that it is an estimate of consumer spending, and check the changelog for a later revision. [S017]
What to keep
Counting only movies leaves out most of this list. Merchandise, licensing and retail are 55.6% of the recorded lifetime spending, inside a range wide enough to respect. Pokémon's $130.7 billion is larger than Star Wars and the MCU combined. Five assigned parents sit behind 58.3% of the table, on a rule that is not a title search. [S017]
Every useful comparison needs a date, a denominator and a description of what the number measures. Consumer spending is not profit. A changed estimate is not a collapsing business. A national label is not a national industry. Buying a company does not retroactively earn the money audiences once spent on its characters.
The characters may travel between games, films, shelves and parks. The accounting labels should travel with them.
More charts
Twenty-four candidates were drawn in the same theme and scored for a single point, a surprise, whether a phone can read them, and whether the data can hold the claim. The five above led. Eight more are below: swipe or use the buttons. Nothing moves on its own. Scores and the contact sheet: scores.csv, contact sheet.
Who the list's first name belongs to
Disney, at $430.7 billion, is far ahead of Warner Bros. Discovery ($133.0 billion) and The Pokémon Company ($130.7 billion). It shows how much of the list sits under a handful of first-listed parents, on a counting rule that is not a legal ownership audit.
Scale and share are different prizes
The United States sums to $825.5 billion and Japan to $394.5 billion. Japan's merchandise share is 71.4% against 51.5% for the United States, so the larger total and the larger share sit in different places.
FY2025, three Disney segments
Entertainment is $42.5 billion, Experiences $36.2 billion and Sports $17.7 billion for the year ended 27 September 2025. These are annual company segments, not lifetime franchise totals, and Experiences includes parks and merchandise.
DC is three rows. Harry Potter is a fourth.
Batman is $29.9 billion, Superman $8.2 billion and the DC Extended Universe $8.0 billion, which sums to $46.1 billion. Wizarding World, at $35.1 billion, is a separate Warner row, so the sum is not a clean corporate total.
2025's top ten, as a count
Nine of the ten highest-grossing films of 2025 are franchise installments on both Box Office Mojo and The Numbers. F1 is the one original under this coding, and the count holds up better than the dollar totals.
2026's top ten so far, as a count
Six of the ten highest-grossing films of 2026 so far are franchise installments. The Odyssey, Michael, Project Hail Mary and Obsession are the originals, and 2026 is not a finished year.
Eighty became 33.5
Hello Kitty is $80.0 billion in the 2019 file and $33.5 billion on the November list. That is a source revision, and Sanrio did not publish a collapse to match the edit.
The whole list, one month later
The list total went from $1,448.1 billion on the 12 October revision to $1,460.1 billion on 7 November. All of the $12.0 billion rise is Call of Duty and Paw Patrol.
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The other candidates, the restyled body charts, and the ledger CSVs are in /data/articles/franchise/. The candidate folder is charts/candidates/.
Editor's note
12 November 2026. Added the section for people who own or market an IP, a Sources & method section, and source links on every figure. No figures changed. 10 November 2026. The ledger was re-read at Wikipedia revision 1384334611 (7 November) [S017]. Two rows moved: Call of Duty to $40 billion and Paw Patrol to the list's stated $18.4 billion, with the retail line confirmed at Deadline and the box-office add-on flagged. Worldwide grosses now come from Box Office Mojo, with The Numbers alongside, because the Wikipedia 2026 Mario cell is malformed and the Ne Zha 2 tallies disagree. Disney's segments are the FY2025 10-K. The DC paragraph now cites the 2026 list. The "43 additional US-origin properties" line did not match the crosswalk and is now 45. The voice is a factual reading: curious, warm, and unwilling to invent a joke the numbers did not earn. The 27:03 Kore file remains the October reading. See What changed when we fixed the data. Human editorial direction; AI-assisted analysis and chart code per Artometrics workflow.
— Artometrics Editorial Desk