If anyone has not guessed by now, as much as I love music and HiFi, home cinema is really my thing: I love movies and have a pretty large DVD collection, as well as an ever growing Blu-ray collection. However, my collection is not as big as some customers I have met along my lengthy time in the industry.
Here is one of the biggest collections of Blu-rays I have seen, belonging to one of my friends and long time customers Jon in Berkshire.
I did a quick bit of googling and fairly easily found a list of the top 14 grossing franchises of all time, which I found very interesting but felt that there were some interesting gaps that would certainly make my list.
These are the top 14:
14. The Despicable Me franchise creeps in at the bottom of the list, having made $4.64 billion since its launch in 2010.
13. The Transformers films have made $4.84 billion since their launch and, with another film on the way in the near future and talk of a prequel film as well, this number is sure to rise.
12. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Reading about this it does not include the Hobbit films, but by itself this trilogy of films, shot back to back with a stunning cast, brought in $5.9 billion.
11. The Jurassic Park franchise is probably the movie that got me into home cinema in the first place, so the first film definitely holds a soft spot for me, and is my number one choice for demos. Although there have been some slightly weaker films along the journey, the franchise has still brought in a sizeable $6 billion to date.
10. The X-Men films start the beginning of the latter part of the list heavily dominated by the comic characters, but as a franchise by itself it has brought in $6.08 billion. Although, now that Marvel own the rights to X-Men, it's likely there will be some new content within this world.
9. The DC Universe's Justice League, including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, have amassed between them an impressive $6.19 billion and counting.
8. The Fast and Furious franchise has been around for a long time now. They may not be everyone's cup of tea, but with supercharged action and many ridiculous stunts they are always good fun. As the franchise aged they started to find their feet, and with two more films yet to come the $6.62 billion amassed already is likely to take them further up this list.
7. The many different faces of Batman, having been around for 82 years and most recently portrayed by Robert Pattinson, has risen it further up this list. With no doubt more films to come, having brought in $6.8 billion so far, Batman stands by itself as a heavily admired franchise.
6. One of the many parts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Avengers stand by themselves as a high part of this list. The quadrilogy of films grossed an impressive $7.76 billion.
5. The 60 year reign of the James Bond saga, featuring seven different Bonds and covering 27 films, has amassed a substantial $7.83 billion and clearly marks Bond as the favourite spy saga. The hunt for the next Bond is now reaching fever pitch.
4. The Wizarding World, including the eight Harry potter films and the three from the Fantastic Beasts, has draw in a whopping $9.6 billion to date - will there be more from this franchise in the future?
3. The Spider-Man saga only recently pipped Harry Potter's 3rd place with the release of 'Spider-Man: No Way Home', which grossed $1.63 billion at the box office alone, taking the franchise to a total of $9.8 billion.
2. With nine movies grossing over $10.31 billion from three separate trilogies, George Lucas' Star Wars franchise born in the 1970s clearly stands out above the rest of the crowd. With another trilogy now planned, I would expect Star Wars to cement its second position in this list, but its chances of making it to number one seem slim.
1. From 2008 to today, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has churned out over two dozen films in a short space of time. From Iron Man to 'Thor: Love and Thunder' most recently, the MCU has amassed an incredible $27.98 billion and shows no signs of stopping any time soon.
Although this list makes very interesting reading, in my very humble opinion there are some glaring absences from this list.
I shall not try to put them in any particular order as I'm not sure I can decide between them.
1. The Mission: Impossible saga. Having just finished rewatching the current six films, and with two more on the way in 2023 and 2024 in a two-part film, I think this series of films would definitely be in my list of best movie franchises.
2. How can I not mention the Indiana Jones franchise? The first three films being brilliant and the fourth film having moments of brilliance but a very odd storyline, we can only hope the fifth film that comes next year will be a return to brilliance for Spielberg and Lucas' combined work.
3. The Die Hard saga. This raises yet another great question: is Die Hard a Christmas film or not? Aside from that, the John McClane action hero has not failed to entertain in any of the five films.
4. It's a given that the Terminator franchise has to be on this list somewhere. With Arnold Schwarzenegger doing what he does best, the franchise has lasted many years and has undergone more plots twists and evading of Judgement Day than you can keep pace with, but it's hard to argue about how great the films were.
5. The Karate Kid saga, which has since led to the incredible Cobra Kai series on Netflix which is superb. The main saga in its own right contained brilliant films and the fact that it took nearly 30 years before the series started gives a great indication of the longevity of the franchise.
6. The Lethal Weapon franchise. This one slipped by me for a bit, but Mel Gibson and Danny Glover's series of films were a great combo of serious action with just the right amount of humour.
7. The Twilight Saga, which is not everyone's cup of tea but good fun all the same. A nice combination of vampires and teen romance drama, cleverly twisted together as the Saga releases its finale.
8. The Alien and Predator franchise. Hard to put into words how big this cult classic is in some sections, but they truly deserve a place on my list.
9. The Back to the Future trilogy. This is actually the reason I started thinking about writing this article: I saw something on Facebook from the Marty McFly group asking what the best trilogy ever is. Personally, I'm having a had time arguing about this one; I love all three films in their own right and together they are just brilliant.
10. The Matrix franchise. Now I have watched the first three films a lot of times and own them on three different formats, but somehow the fourth one sort of skipped me by, so I really should get round to watching it. As pieces of cinema go, the technological boundaries that were pushed in making these films, let alone the soundtracks, would guarantee they fall within my top film franchises.
There are lots of others I feel I could also add to this list but I'm sure a lot of other people will have their own opinions on this subject so please feel free to put a reply in the comments or on our Facebook or Twitter. If you would like to hear any of your favourite films on a great system then please email as at humans@expressiveaudio.com or call us on 01507 499047 to arrange a demo, or pop in to see us at our Lincolnshire showroom.
