Nearly three-quarters of fans (72%) feel fatigued by the volume of entertainment releases, and yet an almost equal amount — 69% — crave franchise content over new material, with Star Wars projects leading the pack, a new study from fan platform Fandom shows.
Fandom unveiled the top 25 game and TV/film franchises of 2023 with Marvel, One Piece, Elder Scrolls, and Harry Potter following Star Wars. The list is based on a new metric the company developed — the Franchise Factor Score, which weighs five factors including degree of worldbuilding, fan and critic ratings, and cultural relevance.
An accompanying Fandom report analyzes which trends drive the most fan excitement; fan preferences across spinoffs, adaptations, sequels, and prequels; and how branded tie-ins and licensing deals can keep fans excited.
The idea was to give a unified view on what’s capturing fan attention and why, said Perkins Miller, Fandom’s CEO. “At a broad level, fandom is about serving fans better. There’s so much content being created now and one question is with these deca-billion-dollar content budgets, what really matters to fans?”
The study comes as the big studios continue to lean into exploiting well-known characters and stories but have a times wrestled with the execution. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav recently admitted the company hasn’t done enough to mine its IP like DC and “Lord of the Rings,” while Disney CEO Bob Iger has conceded Marvel fatigued viewers by putting out too much content. It also comes as toy and other brands are looking to copy the success of Barbie by parlaying their products into blockbuster movies and shows.
The study drew from a survey of 5,000 entertainment and gaming fans in the US and UK as well as analysis of Fandom’s platform of 350 million monthly users across 250,000 fan wikis.
The research presents a snapshot in time, so it won’t account for a franchise that hasn’t come out with new content in a while, like “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon.” The study also doesn’t look at viewership; Fandom’s argument is that its own site, by capturing fan search activity, is a better reflection of their enthusiasm.
Successful franchises take time to build — 80% of the top 25 have been around over 20 years — and require high quality content, but some less-obvious findings emerged from the study about what makes strong and compelling properties.
Marvel, Harry Potter, and Barbie’s presence on the list comes as no surprise, but also highlighted were some stealthier top-ranked franchises, like fantasy series “Shadow & Bone” and Nintendo action video game Zelda. Fandom’s analysis found that Nintendo won over fans by leaning into Zelda fans’ rabid interest in the timeline of the franchise — much in the way the Marvel Cinematic Universe has done, said Anthony Iaffaldano, VP, Sales Marketing & Insights at Fandom.
Elsewhere, the top 25 list also reflects the popularity of video game adaptations for film and TV like HBO’s “The Last of Us” and Netflix’s “One Piece,” which the streamer recently renewed for a second season. Netflix says the series, whose original IP is Eiichiro Oda’s manga, is its No. 1 title globally.
Fandom’s study showed that fans valued filmed entertainment that paid homage to the depth of the original universe, including secondary storylines and characters — series and films that “translate the feeling people have playing the game,” Iaffaldano said. He noted that 40% of fans of cross-media adaptations are looking for a strong connection to the source material.
Ranking No. 6 on the list was Barbie, whose summer blockbuster film benefited from a reported budget of $145 million and used extensive marketing to drum up interest and participation before the movie’s release. When Barbie social media filters and posters were released, traffic to Fandom’s Barbie wiki spiked more than 200%, driving a bigger increase than the release of the movie’s trailer, Fandom found.
Serving original fans while bringing in new ones is a tricky balance for growing a franchise, and the study calls out Paramount+ for its curation of the Star Trek, citing the successful release of the “Picard” spinoff as a nostalgia play alongside animated series “Prodigy” and “Lower Decks” aimed at new fans.
“We saw original fans far less likely to watch those,” Iaffaldano said of the animated shows. “It’s been a very interesting and deliberate attempt to revitalize the fan base. Paramount’s one of the ones that’s doing it well.”
Overall, world-building, as exemplified by Star Wars, was the most important factor in love of a franchise, cited by 32%. Next most important was consistency (23%), followed by fanbase (18%), cultural relevance (14%), and ratings (13%).
Fandom also broke down the value of sequels, prequels, and spinoffs. It found 57% of respondents were interested in sequels and prequels to further explore their favorite stories and characters, while 53% valued spinoffs as a way to expand the original story and characters.
Beyond having franchises with extensive universes, studios can win with fans by studying where they’re coming together and how they’re expressing their fandom as well as knowing which franchise characters can tap into the cultural zeitgeist, Miller said.
“We look at our fans, and they’re heavily engaged online; they’re engaged in cosplay,” he said. “Understanding where these communities live may not be as obvious to the studios.”
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