Key Takeaways

• Winnie the Pooh has grossed the most revenue among all Disney franchises, with $80.3 billion.
• The Mickey Mouse and Friends franchise is Disney's second most valuable franchise based on its lifetime revenue of $80.3 billion.
• As of August 2021, the Star Wars franchise was Disney's third most valuable franchise, with a lifetime revenue of $68.7 billion. 

Introduction

Most Valuable Media Franchises

• The research showed that the relevant choices are likely all franchises, given that individual characters or movies have a significantly lower value. Therefore, we based our choices on pre-compiled lists of the highest-grossing franchises.
• Statista's ranking of the most valuable media franchises based on revenue as of August 2021 has been presented below.

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Winnie the Pooh

• Winnie the Pooh has grossed the most revenue among all Disney franchises.
• As of August 2021, Winnie the Pooh had grossed $80.3 billion.

• It is estimated that the Winnie the Pooh franchise generates between $3 billion and $6 billion annually for Disney.
• It is, however, essential to point out that the Winnie the Pooh character copyright expired on Jan 1, 2022. This means that characters in the 1926 Winnie the Pooh book entered into the public domain and will be used by others to make new works of art, potentially causing Disney to lose millions in revenue. These characters include "Pooh, Christopher Robin, Owl, Eeyore, Rabbit Kanga, and Roo."
• Still, Disney's version of Winnie the Pooh remains protected by copyright.

Mickey Mouse and Friends

• Mickey Mouse and Friends is Disney's second most valuable franchise based on its lifetime revenue.
• The franchise has generated $80.3 billion for Disney as of August 2021.
• It is under threat since the earliest version of Mickey Mouse will lose its copyright and enter the public domain in 2024.
• Most of Mickey Mouse's revenue is from merchandising. Within five years of its inception, it was already generating $1 million in merchandise sales, which is equivalent to $19 million today.

• In 2018, Mickey Mouse and Friends franchise sold merchandise worth $3 billion.
• Part of Mickey Mouse's success can be attributed to the merchandise appealing both to children and adults. While initially, kids were the main target group, the situation changed post-World War II. Around that time, the first generation of fans was well into adulthood. At the same time, Disney started marketing Mickey Mouse as the symbol of innocence, playing into people's "desperation for something hopeful to cling to."

Star Wars

• As of August 2021, Star Wars was Disney's third most valuable franchise, with a lifetime revenue of $68.7 billion. 
• The Star Wars franchise generates revenue through multiple streams, including box office tickets, franchise deals, TV shows, and merchandising.
• Even though Star Wars movies are widely popular, the franchise owes its success to its merchandise.
• Star Wars generated over $10 Billion in revenue at the Box Office. Its most recent film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, released in 2019, sold $1 billion in tickets.
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• Disney is also planning to release another movie, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, on Dec 22, 2023. Disney is also planning to expand on Star Wars-related shows, including the new season of The Mandalorian and several other shows.

Disney Princess

• As of August 2021, the Disney Princess was Disney's fourth most valuable franchise, with a lifetime revenue of $46.4 billion. 
• Most of the revenue is generated through merchandising, especially from its toy line (Princess Line). When Mattel reclaimed its Disney license for Princess and Frozen lines from Hasbro, media reported that back in 2016, losing the license cost the company about $400 million, which was the major reason behind its financial struggles.
• However, as per Bloomberg, in 2014, Disney Princess sales were as much as $722 million.

 

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• The Disney Princess Franchise only involves characters from Disney's animated movies: "Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, and Moana."
• The Disney Princess official YouTube channel has 2.3 million subscribers and generates $6.2 million in advertising revenue for Disney.

Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)

• As of August 2021, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was Disney's fifth most valuable franchise, with a lifetime revenue of $35.3 billion. 
• The MCU franchise is the highest-grossing movie franchise in the world.
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• The franchise has released 29 movies that have grossed over $27 billion worldwide.
• The Avengers End Game movie, released in 2019, generated $2.8 billion globally. The four avengers movies earned Disney $7.7 billion from ticket sales only. The company plans to release another Avenger Movie on Nov 7, 2025, dubbed Avengers: Secret Wars.
• It 2021 Spider-Man: No Way Home grossed $1.9 billion worldwide.

Research Strategy