What are the biggest Comcast franchises?
Rounding out the major American media conglomerates, here’s a look at Comcast’s biggest media franchises, similar to my look at Disney, Warner Bros., and Paramount. Note by “Comcast” I actually mean “NBCUniversal,” the corporate parent of NBC and Universal Studios. That said, its biggest money-maker by far is its cable TV and broadband side, which pulls in almost twice what all the movies, TV shows, and streaming services earn. All those cable TV fees and broadband price hikes (and decades of media deregulation) really pay off?
Figures are taken from Wikipedia (though they’re sourced), and are thus mostly rough estimates, but mostly give an idea of how things stand. Amounts aren’t adjusted for inflation, and ignore that some properties pre-date Comcast’s ownership.
The top Comcast franchises
Despicable Me/Minions, $11.3 billion
Jurassic Park, $8.82 billion
Fast & Furious, $7.91 billion
Shrek, $6.3 billion
Madagascar, $2.59 billion
Kung Fu Panda, $2.54 billion
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, $2.04 billion (box office/VHS sales: $1.047 billion)
Bourne films, $2.03 billion
My observations
Not adjusting for inflation, Comcast’s top grossing franchise is Illumination’s “Despicable Me.” Illumination’s low film budgets no doubt help here. And unlike its corporate sibling DreamWorks, Comcast has owned Illumination from the get-go.
At #2 and #3 are the top grossing live-action franchises, “Jurassic Park” and the “Fast and the Furious” films. The movie-going public love dinosaurs and fast cars?
At #4 is the top DreamWorks franchise, “Shrek.” While the ogre himself hasn’t had much screentime in recent years, spin-offs like “Puss in Boots” have been popular.
Two other DreamWorks film franchises follow “Shrek”: “Madagascar” and “Kung Fu Panda.”
While “E.T.” is listed as $2.04 billion on Wikipedia, I note part of that figure cited comes from an 80s article projecting how much merchandise would pull in during the then-upcoming holidays. (Not to mention it was written in August 1982, months before the infamous “E.T.” video game was released.) While “E.T.” was popular, it didn’t seem as popular as the projected figure of $1 billion. The box office and VHS sales figures seem more accurate.
Finally, there’s the “Jason Bourne” series of films.
While not included on the Wikipedia page, Comcast’s famous film franchises are still quite lucrative, including Universal classics like “Back to the Future” and its famous horror films. There’s also recent successes like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (grossing $1.36 billion worldwide). On the television side, NBC has its popular sports broadcasts, including “Sunday Night Football” and its often-mediocre Olympics coverage.