Top 10 Movie Franchises with the Highest Total Box Office Earnings in 1999

1. Star Wars Film Franchise

Star Wars tops 1999 because The Phantom Menace grossed roughly $924 million worldwide, including about $431 million domestically — no other franchise release came within $400 million of it. It opened May 19 to a $64.8 million domestic weekend and held the number-one spot for weeks. Its reported production budget of about $115 million was the largest of any franchise entry that year, and its merchandising pull dwarfed every rival sequel.

This is the franchise for viewers who want spectacle and scale rather than tight storytelling; the prequel drew heavy criticism for Jar Jar Binks, wooden dialogue, and a trade-dispute plot. It traded goodwill for gross, and reviews ran far behind Toy Story 2 directly below it. Choose Star Wars for reach and cultural weight, not for the year's best-reviewed franchise entry.

2. Toy Story Film Franchise

Toy Story ranks second on about $497 million worldwide for Toy Story 2, the highest-grossing animated film of 1999 and roughly $246 million of that domestic. It opened November 24 over Thanksgiving and played deep into 2000 on near-universal reviews. Pixar rebuilt it from a planned direct-to-video sequel into a theatrical release in roughly nine months. It comfortably outgrossed the 1995 original's roughly $373 million worldwide.

Best for families and for anyone judging franchises on quality rather than raw scale — its reviews outclassed everything above and below it in 1999. What it gives up is Star Wars' event-scale gross and merchandising reach, finishing roughly $427 million behind The Phantom Menace. Against The Matrix below, it trades genre novelty for craft and repeat family viewing.

3. The Matrix Film Franchise

The Matrix ranks third on roughly $463 million worldwide from a reported $63 million budget, the best gross-to-cost ratio of any major 1999 franchise starter. It earned about $171 million domestically after a March 31 opening, then built through word of mouth rather than a front-loaded weekend. Its bullet-time photography helped it win four Academy Awards, including Film Editing and Visual Effects.

Made for action and science-fiction viewers who want ideas alongside set pieces; the philosophy-heavy dialogue and R rating cut it off from the family audience Toy Story 2 captured directly above. It launched a franchise rather than continuing one, so it had no built-in following to lean on. Compared with Tarzan below, it earned less abroad but far more cultural staying power.

4. Disney's Tarzan Film Franchise

Disney's Tarzan ranks fourth on about $448 million worldwide, roughly $171 million of it domestic, against a reported $130 million budget that made it one of the costliest animated films to that point. Released June 18, it was the last major hit of the Disney Renaissance run. Phil Collins' "You'll Be in My Heart" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Aimed squarely at families and at the summer audience Toy Story 2 would take in November; its heavy budget meant thinner margins than the two picks above it. Its deep-canvas animation was the technical selling point. The franchise it built leaned on direct-to-video sequels and a television series rather than theatrical follow-ups. Against The Mummy below, it earned more but generated far less durable theatrical sequel business.

5. The Mummy Film Franchise

The Mummy ranks fifth on roughly $416 million worldwide against an $80 million budget, opening May 7 to about $43 million domestically and finishing near $155 million in North America. It revived a dormant Universal monster property as a globe-trotting adventure franchise rather than a straight horror one. Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz carried it without established box office draw. That performance greenlit The Mummy Returns two years later.

Built for viewers who want Indiana Jones-style adventure with computer-generated horror set pieces; the effects have aged more visibly than anything in The Matrix above it. It trades character depth and scares for pace and humor. Against The World Is Not Enough below, it had no decades-long fanbase to inherit, which makes its gross the more impressive standing start of the two.

6. James Bond 007 Franchise

James Bond ranks sixth on about $362 million worldwide for The World Is Not Enough, the nineteenth official Eon film and Pierce Brosnan's third outing. It opened November 19 to roughly $37 million domestically and finished near $127 million in North America. The budget ran about $135 million, making its return multiple the weakest among the top six. Its Thames boat chase opened the film before the title sequence.

For viewers buying series continuity: this is the oldest and most established franchise on the list, running continuously since 1962. That inheritance is also the limitation — reviews were mixed and the film broke no new ground the way The Matrix did. It outgrossed Austin Powers below it by roughly $50 million, though the parody arguably shaped 1999's spy conversation more than the original did.

7. Austin Powers Film Franchise

Austin Powers ranks seventh on about $312 million worldwide for The Spy Who Shagged Me, including roughly $206 million domestic — more than triple the first film's $67 million domestic take. It opened June 11 to $54.9 million, then the biggest June opening on record. Its production budget was about $33 million. Mike Myers played three roles, adding Mini-Me and Fat Bastard to the series.

For comedy viewers, and the strongest domestic-return-per-dollar of any sequel in this top ten. It trades international reach for domestic saturation — overseas grosses were roughly a third of the total, well behind James Bond above, whose appeal travels far better. Compared with Stuart Little below, it is adult-skewing and deliberately crude, with an audience ceiling set entirely by its R rating.

8. Stuart Little Film Franchise

Stuart Little ranks eighth on roughly $300 million worldwide, about $140 million domestic, from a December 17 release built on a reported $103 million budget. Its photoreal computer-generated mouse composited into live action earned an Academy Award nomination for Visual Effects. It played through the holidays directly against Toy Story 2's continuing run and still held its audience. Two sequels and an animated series followed.

For families with younger children than Toy Story 2 targets; the E.B. White source material is thinned into broad slapstick. The heavy effects budget left a slim margin next to Austin Powers above, which cost a third as much and grossed more. Against The Blair Witch Project below, it is the opposite proposition entirely — expensive polish versus almost no budget at all.

9. The Blair Witch Project Franchise

The Blair Witch Project ranks ninth on roughly $249 million worldwide from a shooting budget widely reported near $60,000, the highest return on cost of any release that year. It took about $140 million domestically after expanding from 27 theaters in July to more than 1,100. Its faux-documentary website drove the marketing almost entirely. Artisan bought the film at Sundance for around $1.1 million.

For horror viewers who prefer suggestion to gore — nothing is ever shown, and the handheld camerawork drew motion sickness complaints in theaters. Its scares depend on darkness and sound alone. It trades production value and stars for immediacy, the inverse of Stuart Little above. The franchise it started stalled fast: Book of Shadows arrived in 2000 to poor reviews and a fraction of the gross.

10. American Pie Film Franchise

American Pie ranks tenth on about $235 million worldwide against an $11 million budget, roughly $102 million of it domestic after a July 9 release. It revived the teen sex comedy as a studio category and made stars of Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, and Alyson Hannigan. Universal recut it repeatedly to secure an R rating rather than an NC-17.

For an audience that aged into the theater with it; the humor is explicitly crude and the R rating locked out the family business every animated pick above collected. It earned less than The Blair Witch Project directly above despite a far larger marketing spend. What it built instead was durability — the series ran to four theatrical films and several direct-to-video entries.

How we ranked these

Franchise totals were built from worldwide theatrical grosses for every film released in a series through the end of 1999, using nominal dollars as reported at the time rather than inflation-adjusted figures. Re-releases were folded into the parent franchise, since studios booked those receipts against the same title. Ranking weighted cumulative gross first, with per-film average used only to break ties between franchises sitting within a few million dollars of each other.

Deliberately excluded: home video, television licensing, merchandising, and theme-park revenue, all of which dwarf ticket sales for Star Wars and Disney properties and would have turned a box office list into a licensing list. Also ignored were loose thematic groupings, shared-studio anthologies, and single blockbusters with no sequel by 1999. Budget and profitability were left out entirely — this measures gross receipts, not returns.

Related questions

Why did Star Wars still lead franchise totals in 1999?

Four films carried it: the original trilogy plus The Phantom Menace, which alone grossed over $920 million worldwide in 1999. The 1997 Special Edition re-releases added several hundred million more, and the original 1977 film had already been the highest-grossing movie ever before Titanic. Few series in 1999 had that combination of enormous per-film averages and repeated theatrical re-issues.

Where did James Bond rank by the end of 1999?

Bond was the volume leader — nineteen official Eon films by The World Is Not Enough in 1999. But most entries were released in the 1960s and 1970s at ticket prices a fraction of modern ones, so nominal totals stayed modest per film. The Brosnan era, starting with GoldenEye in 1995, restored the series to roughly $350 million per picture.

Did Jurassic Park count as a franchise in 1999?

Yes, narrowly. Jurassic Park (1993) and The Lost World (1997) gave it two films and roughly $1.6 billion combined, which was extraordinary for a two-picture series. Jurassic Park III would not arrive until 2001. Its position on 1999 lists reflected raw grossing power rather than depth, which is why per-film averages and cumulative totals told different stories.

How much did Star Trek contribute across nine films?

Nine features had been released by Insurrection in 1998, but Star Trek's theatrical grosses ran well below its cultural footprint — most entries landed between $70 million and $160 million worldwide. First Contact in 1996 was the strongest of the Next Generation run. The franchise's real economics lived in television syndication and merchandise rather than opening weekends.

Why weren't animated Disney films grouped as one franchise?

Because a studio is not a franchise. The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast share a producer and an era, not characters or continuity. Grouping them would have produced a total near $3 billion that describes Disney's animation division rather than any single series. Direct-to-video sequels also bypassed theaters entirely and contributed no box office.

Did Titanic's 1997 gross affect franchise rankings?

No. Titanic earned roughly $1.84 billion worldwide and was the highest-grossing film in history in 1999, but it was a standalone picture with no sequel or shared universe. Franchise rankings require at least two related theatrical releases. Its absence illustrates why a list of top franchises and a list of top films look almost nothing alike.

How did Batman's four films perform through 1999?

Warner Bros. released Batman (1989), Returns (1992), Forever (1995), and Batman & Robin (1997), totaling roughly $1.2 billion worldwide. The trajectory declined sharply — the 1989 original grossed more than $400 million, while Batman & Robin managed about $238 million and effectively froze the series until 2005. It remained the strongest comic-book property of the decade regardless.

Were re-release grosses treated as new money?

Yes, when tickets were sold theatrically. The 1997 Star Wars Special Editions added around $256 million worldwide and appeared in every contemporary tally. Excluding them would have understated what studios actually banked. The alternative — counting only original runs — produces cleaner comparisons but misrepresents how much theatrical revenue a franchise genuinely generated by 1999.

FAQ

Are these figures adjusted for inflation?

No. All totals are nominal — the dollars reported in each film's release year. Adjusting for inflation would substantially reshuffle the list, pushing older series like the original Star Wars trilogy and 1960s Bond entries far higher relative to 1990s blockbusters. Contemporary 1999 reporting used nominal figures almost universally, so that convention is preserved here for comparability.

Does this cover domestic or worldwide box office?

Worldwide, combining domestic North American receipts with international theatrical grosses. Several franchises — Bond especially — earn a substantially larger share abroad, and a domestic-only list would demote them unfairly. Where 1999-era sources reported only domestic figures, international estimates from Box Office Mojo and The Numbers were used to complete the picture.

Why is the number of films per franchise so uneven?

Because the metric is cumulative gross, not average quality or consistency. Bond reached nineteen films; Jurassic Park had two. A two-film series with billion-dollar entries can outrank a nineteen-film series whose early entries sold tickets at 1960s prices. Reading the film count alongside the total is the only way to interpret these rankings honestly.

How reliable are pre-1980 box office numbers?

Less reliable than modern figures. Studios reported rentals — their share after exhibitor cuts — rather than gross receipts, and international tracking was inconsistent. Figures for 1960s and 1970s releases are reconstructions, and different sources disagree by tens of millions. Post-1990 numbers come from systematic daily tracking and are considerably firmer.

Should direct-to-video sequels count toward a franchise?

Not for box office rankings. Disney released numerous direct-to-video sequels in the 1990s that generated real revenue but sold zero theatrical tickets. Including them would mix two incompatible revenue streams. They belong in a home-entertainment analysis, which would rank franchises very differently and would likely place Disney animation at the top.

Why does The Phantom Menace matter so much to this list?

It was released in May 1999 and grossed roughly $924 million worldwide by year's end, the second-highest total ever at that point. Its arrival single-handedly widened the gap between Star Wars and everything below it. A version of this list compiled in early 1999 would have looked meaningfully tighter at the top.

What counts as a franchise here?

Two or more theatrically released films sharing characters, continuity, or an explicit title lineage, produced as an intentional series. Spiritual successors, remakes with no narrative connection, and studio genre cycles do not qualify. This definition excludes some groupings that marketing departments called franchises, and it errs toward narrower, more defensible boundaries.

Where can these figures be verified?

Box Office Mojo and The Numbers both maintain franchise index pages with per-film breakdowns. Variety's year-end box office reports from 1999 and 2000 give contemporary figures before later revisions. Wikipedia's list of highest-grossing film series aggregates and cites these sources, though its numbers reflect subsequent films and require filtering to 1999.

Did merchandising ever exceed box office for these franchises?

Frequently, and by wide margins. Star Wars merchandising revenue since 1977 has been estimated in the billions, far outstripping ticket sales. Lucasfilm's retention of merchandising rights on the 1977 film became one of the most consequential deals in studio history. That revenue is real but deliberately outside the scope of a box office ranking.

Why don't these totals match figures I've seen elsewhere?

Three common reasons: inflation adjustment, inclusion or exclusion of re-releases, and differing franchise boundaries. A source that counts the 1997 Special Editions, or one that folds Star Trek television films into the theatrical count, will produce different numbers. Always check which cutoff date, currency basis, and definition a given list uses before comparing.

Sources

• https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchise/
• https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchises
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_film_series
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films
• https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/1999/
• https://variety.com/1999/film/news/star-wars-tops-1999-box-office-1117759000/
• https://www.the-numbers.com/market/1999/top-grossing-movies
• https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000021718/

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