In an era of uncertainty, there is one facet of the industry that remains rock-solid: franchises. 

According to a new report released today by Ampere Analysis, these tried-and-proven IPs are (and still remain) “the cornerstone of entertainment success.” Looking at all commissions announced between 2022 and 2024, the London-based research firm has found that commissions based on existing franchises maintained a steady market share of roughly 20%. 

Several kids & family franchises cracked into the top-20 ranking of scripted franchise-based commissions, including Star Wars (pictured, 20 commissions), the MCU (16), LEGO (13) and Sesame Street (12). 

Distributors have also increased their focus on franchise-based films. Ampere has seen the volume of franchise-based movies in their catalogues jump to 95 titles in the second half of 2024, up from 67 for the same period in 2023. 

Ampere draws a number of conclusions in its report about what makes franchises attractive. For distributors, the goal is to take on a local title and expand it out to a global audience, while SVODs are more interested in creating localized versions of an IP in order to cater to regions where they’re still building an audience. Netflix has been leading the way with this strategy, announcing franchise extensions for 22 different countries between 2022 and 2024. 

As for the viewers themselves, they’re also attracted to this kind of content—more than two-thirds of the top 100 most popular movies and TV series (measured by monthly online engagement metrics) in 2024 were based on existing franchises. In short, franchises are the resilient key to bucking the industry’s commissioning downturn, says Ampere. 

Pictured is Star Wars: The Clone Wars.