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May 28, 2024

What are the biggest Paramount franchises?

"Paramount Studios Los Angeles" by Tips For Travellers is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (Flickr)

In the spirit of my look at Disney and Warner Bros.’s biggest franchises, I thought I’d look at the top franchises for Paramount.

Figures are taken from Wikipedia (though they’re sourced), and thus mostly rough estimates, but still give a good idea of how things stand. Amounts aren’t adjusted for inflation, and ignore that some properties pre-date Paramount’s ownership. I also couldn't pull up 10 entries like I did for Disney and Warner Bros., thus the shorter list.

The top 7 Paramount franchises

  1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, $17.4 billion

  2. Dora the Explorer, $15.8 billion

  3. SpongeBob SquarePants, $13.7 billion

  4. Star Trek, $10.7 billion

  5. Mission: Impossible, $4.1 billion

  6. Blue’s Clues, $3.6 billion

  7. Titanic, $3.42 billion

My observations

As I've noted before, Paramount isn't as big as the other studios, so they don't have as many major franchises to draw from like the Mouse House or Warners' owners-du-jour. Paramount doesn't own any superheroes (unless Mighty Mouse or the Ninja Turtles count); SpongeBob, while popular, isn't a Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny; and "Star Trek" feels like it's been overshadowed in recent years by "Star Wars."

While I couldn’t find 10 entries (like the Disney and Warner Bros. posts), it’s clear that Paramount’s top franchises are basically “Star Trek” and Nickelodeon, as I’d long assumed. Out of the seven entries, four are Nickelodeon franchises, while “Star Trek” comes in at #4.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” comes in at #1, though it’s a franchise Paramount has only owned since 2009. The top-earning franchise Paramount’s owned since day one is “Dora the Explorer,” at #2. There’s a reason it’s one of the shows rebooted for Paramount+ (despite the cancellation fate of the other classic Nickelodeon shows rebooted, such as “Rugrats”).

As expected, “SpongeBob” is on this list (at #3), as he’s pretty much the main cartoon face of Paramount. Though it’s interesting that despite “SpongeBob” and “Dora” being about the same age (“SpongeBob” debuted in 1999, “Dora” in 2000), the young explorer’s earned more money than the sponge.

“Mission: Impossible”’s revenue, of course, is pretty much entirely from the Tom Cruise movies, not the original 60s/70s TV show.

Despite just being one film (and associated re-releases, home video releases, and merchandise), “Titanic” is big enough to crack the top Paramount franchises list.

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