Today - July 29, 2024 - marks exactly 70 years since the release of the first book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The fantasy series and its prequel The Hobbit have since enticed generations of fans young and old, who have delved into the books, watched and rewatched the movies and have also been able play video games based on their favorite characters. A first movie outside the LOTR and the Hobbit series - animated The War of the Rohirrim - is scheduled to be released in December and is expected to make the series a $6 billion franchise. However, as The Lord of the Rings and other movie franchises scramble to put out more and more movies to keep the momentum of their success going, they are earning less and less per release. As data by Box Office Mojo shows, the Hobbit series made fewer bucks at the U.S. box office (after adjusting for inflation) than the original LOTR trilogy despite having a much bigger budget. Taking a look at other franchises, this is also true for the Star Wars and Harry Potter series.
Both are kind of a cautionary tale of what might happen if you leave the story line of you original material. By the end of the Skywalker saga in 2019, Star Wars owners Disney had already produced three film outside the original Star Wars storyline - to varying degrees of success. The 2008 animated movie The Clone Wars, released between the end of the prequel series and the start of the sequel Skywalker series, only earned an inflation-adjusted $50 million in the United States. Star Wars returned to life action play for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016 and actually landed a success outside the Skywalker saga, before Solo: A Star Wars Story arrived in 2018 to a mixed reception. Time will tell if director Taika Waititi can land a hit with his still untitled Star Wars film due to be released in May 2026. Considering budgets, The Clone Wars still made some money due to being a lot cheaper as an animated movie - something that reportedly does not apply to LOTR's The War of the Rohirrim, however. The underperforming Solo was at the same time the second worst performing and the second most expensive Star Wars movie.
Harry Potter, meanwhile, suffered even more in the transition from the original book material to new series Fantastic Beats. The franchise now called J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World makes do without any Harry appearances for the series, but also without the level of success the eight original Potter movies enjoyed. The second release, titled The Grimes of Grindelwald, was only half as successful in 2018 as earlier movies after adjusting for inflation, while 2022's The Secrets of Dumbledore earned even less. Again, budgets went up, not down.
