Despicable Me First Animated Franchise To Hit $5B: Here Are The Top Grossing Movie Franchises Ever
Media company Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) has another reason to celebrate with its Despicable Me franchise hitting the $5 billion milestone with the recent success of "Despicable Me 4" in movie theaters.
Here's a look at the important milestone and how it stacks up to other movie franchises.
What Happened: With the recent success of "Despicable Me 4," a new NBA rights package and the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics, Comcast could have several reasons to smile.
"Despicable Me 4" was the top-grossing movie for a second straight week, with an estimated $136 million at the box office in its second full weekend globally. The movie has now grossed $441 million globally in its first two weeks, as reported by Deadline.
The film grossed $210.5 million domestically and $230.7 million in international markets.
Already breaking records at the box office, the new movie in the Despicable Me franchise has now helped Comcast celebrate a new milestone.
The franchise began in 2010. It has now passed the $5 billion worldwide box office milestone. While Despicable Me was already the highest-grossing animated franchise globally of all time, it now becomes the first animated franchise to hit the $5 billion milestone.
The movie could continue to add to its gross throughout the theatrical run and will still open in the markets of Japan, South Korea and Italy.
Given its success, it is likely that Comcast continues to release films in the series. A date of June 30, 2027 has been announced for "Minions 3" as the next film in the franchise.
Comcast owned animation production studio Illumination, which is behind the Despicable Me franchise, has grossed over $10 billion globally. The studio also includes The Secret Life of Pets franchise and was behind "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," which was the second highest-grossing film in 2023.
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Top Grossing Film Franchises: With Despicable Me passing the $5 billion milestone, here's a look at how the franchise ranks both globally and domestically.
Here are the top grossing film franchises of all time and the company behind them, with data from Comic Book Resources.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS): 33 films, $29.75 billion
- Star Wars, Disney: 12 films, $10.33 billion
- Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD): 11 films, $9.57 billion
- Spider-Man, Sony Group Corp (NYSE:SONY): 10 films, $8.96 billion
- James Bond, MGM, which is a unit of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN): 27 films, $7.88 billion
- Avengers, Disney: 4 films, $7.77 billion
- Fast & Furious, Comcast: 11 films, $7.33 billion
- DC Extended Universe, Warner Bros. Discovery: 15 films, $7.14 billion
- Batman, Warner Bros. Discovery: 17 films, $6.8 billion
- X-Men, Disney: 13 films, $6.07 billion
- Jurassic Park, Comcast: 6 films, $6.03 billion
- Middle Earth (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit), Warner Bros.: 6 films, $5.85 billion
- Transformers, Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA)(NASDAQ:PARAA): 8 films, $5.29 billion
- Avatar, Disney: 2 films, $5.24 billion
- Despicable Me, Comcast, 6 films, $5.00 billion and growing
Here's a look at the domestic rankings of film franchises with data from BoxOfficeMojo:
- Marvel Cinematic Universe: $11.8 billion
- Star Wars: $5.1 billion
- Disney Live Action Reimaginings: $3.5 billion
- Spider-Man: $3.3 billion
- Wizarding World: $2.9 billion
- DC Extended Universe: $2.8 billion
- Batman: $2.8 billion
- Avengers: $2.6 billion
- X-Men: $2.5 billion
- Harry Potter: $2.4 billion
- James Bond: $2.3 billion
- Jurassic Park: $2.3 billion
- Fast and the Furious: $2.0 billion
- Middle Earth: $1.9 billion
- Despicable Me: $1.8 billion
The list of franchises includes some overlap with Harry Potter broken out separately from the Wizarding World and Avengers broken out separately from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Several of the franchises have upcoming releases that will add to the totals, including the highly anticipated "Deadpool & Wolverine," which is part of the X-Men franchise and will be released later this month.
The next highest-grossing animated film series domestically and globally is Shrek, which ranks 18th globally at $4.02 billion and 17th domestically at $1.6 billion. A fifth Shrek film is in the works and will be released in theaters on June 30, 2027.
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