Christmas and Halloween are typically the busiest times for films and shows to be announced or rewatched. The fall, as well as early-winter periods, are quite lucrative for the movie industry, as they usually produce several amazing movies. Halloween is usually associated with horror films.
Horror has grown into an extraordinarily profitable category in the movie industry, capable of producing phenomenally successful franchises as well as establishing huge audiences. Horror has almost always been the most financially viable genre at the box office.
They are mainly made on a small budget with a crew of lesser-known actors and are intended to be commercially viable for production companies.
Highest-Grossing Halloween/Horror Movie Franchise
-
The Conjuring ($2.13 billion)
It’s no shocker that The Conjuring series is the top-grossing horror franchise to date. The above films, the first of which was delivered in 2013, rapidly developed eight movies in just two years. The movies are based on the true-life cases of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who try to rescue individuals who’ve been imbued by evil forces.
The original storylines of the entities confronted by the Warrens are explored in film spin-offs. The most well-known example has been Annabelle, the demonic doll incorporated in the first Conjuring film.
-
Alien ($1.72 billion)
The Alien franchise transports everyone to space and exposes us to a merciless alien species. A team on a commercial spacecraft examines an alarm signal in the original movie. They encounter an alien species, which they unintentionally bring aboard their ship.
The alien bursts through a team member’s chest and kills all except for one of them, going to set up future films. All through the series, the battle between aliens and humans is depicted. The pilot episode comprised four movies made between 1979 and 1997 that starred Sigourney Weaver as the edgy character Ellen Ripley.
-
Resident Evil ($1.27 billion)
The next long-running franchise is Resident Evil, which is premised on a Japanese video game franchise. The plot revolves around a special military group battling an effective supercomputer as well as thousands of genetic mutation scientists who have transformed into flesh-eating organisms as a result of an experimental mishap.
The remainder of the series appears to follow Alice, a genetically modified woman who traverses the globe to bring Umbrella as well as its bio-weaponized beasts to an end.
-
IT ($1.17 Billion)
The tale of Pennywise the Dancing Clown emerges from the imagination of author Stephen King. Initially a 1980s miniseries, the franchise received a two-film film adaptation in 2017 and 2019: IT and IT: Chapter Two. The two movies became so successful that they debuted on a list of multi-film franchises.
In IT, Pennywise battles a ragtag band of troublemaker kids who band together to drive him back to the shadows for a further 27 years. In IT: Chapter Two, the group comes back to Derry to reawaken their bonds in order to finally put an end to Pennywise.
-
Saw ($1.02 Billion)
A technician turned serial killer snares supposedly meriting persons in gory cages which compel people to endure agony in order to be reborn in this nine-film psychopathic franchise. Jigsaw, the villain, chooses victims who have managed to get away with the wrongdoing they have done and compels them to fight for their lives in order to be redeemed.
Since its inception in 2004, the Saw franchise has initiated as well as tortured to death new characters within every film whilst also reintroducing Jigsaw as well as his apprentices. The franchise’s popularity has dwindled over time, yet not to the point of extinction.
In 2021, Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson agreed to develop and star in a relaunch of the franchise with all-new characters, which they did in the minor hit Spiral.
-
Hannibal ($924 Million)
Among the top thriller-suspense franchises on the lineup is based on the fictitious character Hannibal Lecter, a cannibalistic serial murderer and brilliant mind who occasionally works to help the FBI capture other serial killers. The series also contains his atrocities as well as his rise to becoming an infamous serial killer himself.
The character, premised on Thomas Harris’s character, is mainly remembered for the film Silence of the Lambs, which is a piece of the Hannibal franchise, which includes five movies produced between 1986 and 2007.
-
Paranormal Activity ($890 Million)
The Paranormal Activity franchise got off to an incredibly fast start, with the initially released films soaring to the highest position at the box office. The series, which officially launched in 2007, is set to release its 8th edition in 2023. A couple becomes growingly disturbed by a malevolent force upon settling into their new home. The occurrence is inherently connected to a woman called Katie.
Every new movie touches on the incidents that take place prior to and following relocating to this house. Despite receiving bad feedback for the majority of the movies in the series, the franchise has grossed more than 30 times its initial spending plan, garnering it a spot on this list.
-
Halloween ($885,000,000)
Halloween is among the longest-running scary franchises on this ranking. Its 13 movies, which have stretched from 1978 to recently, have diverged into numerous discourses. The third film of the latest revived series will be shown in cinemas and on Peacock streaming in the fall. In this installment, we are seeing a villain who can’t seem to truly die notwithstanding the several close calls.
-
Jaws ($819,000,000)
Once Jaws first debuted in 1975, it would become the first movie, according to Guinness World Records, to gross $100 million at the box office. The franchise, however, was brief, lasting just four films. The plot of these films revolves around a great white shark that torments and kills people in a beach resort town.
Despite the fact that the shark ends up dead in the end, relatives of the shark appear to come back to bite the relatives of Sheriff Brodey, the person who is responsible for the shark’s destruction in the 1974 original. The ranking for the later movies was not as substantial as those for the original, although to be honest, it wasn’t a simple movie to top.
-
Scream ($744 Million)
The Scream franchise has been there since 1996, and the sixth episode is set to be released this year. In this witty horror series, the antagonist Ghostface primarily attacks Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and her pals. With every episode, a new character flaunts the legendary mask, each possessing their own nefarious as well as perverted motivations, which are usually linked to scary patterns.
Other than the few adult characters left over from Scream (Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, and Dewey Riley), a new cast and crew are initiated for a significant part.
Horror franchises are among the longest-running film series in the world. The horror genre is chock-full of phenomenal high-grossing horror franchises, whether it’s killers who come back from the grave, original trilogy, subplots, later franchise relaunches, or progressing to a TV format. Most of the movies in this category date back to the 1970s.