When it comes to famous media franchises, huge names like Marvel, Star Wars, or even Harry Potter will come to mind, but you’d be surprised, because the franchise that tops the list is none other than Japan giant title Pokemon!
Sure, Marvel Cinematic Universe may be the highest-grossing film franchise at the box office, but its total media revenue is nowhere near the Pokemon franchise.
When it comes to media franchise, sales from every aspect of the particular franchise will be taken into account. This includes box office, sales from merchandise, home entertainment, and revenue from video games, books, TV series, and other related things.
It is estimated that the Pokemon franchise has earned $59.1 billion USD since its creation in 1996 by Satoshi Tajiri. The franchise becomes the world’s top-selling toy brand, the top-selling trading card game, and the most successful television show based on a video game.
Coming in second place is George Lucas’ Star Wars with a total revenue of $42.9 billion, but despite being in second place, the franchise has a huge gap of $16.2 billion with Pokemon even though it was released almost 20 years earlier than the Japanese franchise.
Meanwhile, coming in close third is another Japanese behemoth in the form of a cute white cat, Hello Kitty with a total of $41.1 billion, while the Wizarding World franchise (AKA Harry Potter) comes in fourth with $26.4 billion.
In case you’re wondering, Marvel is 7th highest on the list with an estimation of $21.7 billion, but considering that the franchise began in 2008, the numbers are quite remarkable, and we expect that it will go higher in the coming future as the company has quite a lot of projects in hand and in plan.
So, what do you think of the rankings? Are you surprised that Pokemon tops the list?
Source: Comic Book
