Biggest Blockbuster Franchises Not Based On Anything

While we haven't seen Detectives Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh since 1998 — except for a short-lived (2016-2019) Fox series – "Lethal Weapon" was a box office powerhouse. "Lethal Weapon" started as a spec script by Shane Black, a 24-year-old aspiring writer fresh out of UCLA who was living in a bungalow in West L.A. when he wrote an  "urban western" about an aging detective "too old for this s**t" and his suicidal super-soldier partner. 

The mismatched buddy cop flick was cliché even in the 1980s, but thanks to Black's smart script, Richard Donner's dynamite direction, and especially Mel Gibson and Danny Glover's chemistry, "Lethal Weapon" earned $65 million domestic and $120 million worldwide on a $15 million budget. "Lethal Weapon 2" more than doubled that domestic gross, earning $147 million in 1989, while "Lethal Weapon 3" earned a slightly less, but still impressive, $144 million in 1992. All previous "Lethal Weapon" movies were made for less than $40 million, but "Lethal Weapon 4" had its budget boosted to $140 million, making its otherwise impressive $130 million domestic and $285 million worldwide take not very profitable. Still, with $487 million domestic — $1.065 billion when adjusted for inflation — the quintessential buddy cop flick was dominant in its day.

Dream of becoming a screenwriter? Prepare to have your script be totally different from the finished film. Case in point: "Beverly Hills Cop." Legend has it that in the 1970s then-Paramount president Michael Eisner came up with the idea of a movie about a Hollywood cop after getting pulled over. From this, screenwriter Danilo Bach wrote "Beverly Drive," about a Pittsburgh cop who investigates his buddy's death in Beverly Hills. That basic idea remained, but subsequent drafts from Bach and others lacked the "fish-out-of-water" aspect Eisner was after, until Daniel Petrie Jr. came aboard and inserted some humor. 

Meanwhile, Sylvester Stallone came on board and rewrote the script to suit his strengths, but dropped out when his script was deemed too expensive (much of which wound up in "Cobra"), so Eddie Murphy was brought in two days later. Petrie rewrote the script again for Murphy, who wound up ad-libbing a lot of it anyway. "Beverly Hills Cop" made $234 million domestically and $316 million worldwide, topping the 1984 box office. "Beverly Hills Cop II" saw diminishing returns in 1987 ($153 million domestic and $276 million worldwide), while "Beverly Hills Cop III" barely broke even, earning $42 million domestically and $119 million worldwide on a $50 million budget. The three-film franchise earned $431 million domestically, for an inflation-adjusted total of $1.076 billion.

James Cameron's movies make a lot of money. Heck, "Titanic" and "Avatar" might have made this list except they're not, you know, franchises (at least not yet). However, Cameron is also the mind behind one of the most famous action franchises of all time, "The Terminator." With one credit to his name in 1984, Cameron got a measly $6 million to film his original action/sci-fi/horror hybrid about a killer robot from the future with an Austrian accent.

"The Terminator came from a dream that I had while I was sick with a fever in a cheap pensione in Rome in 1981," Cameron told BFI. If only all of our bad dreams were so profitable. "The Terminator" became a sleeper hit when it earned $38 million domestically and $78 million worldwide. The series high water mark came with the second film, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," which grossed $203 million domestically and $515 million worldwide, making it the biggest hit of 1991, a rare feat for an R-rated flick. The series has been hit or miss ever since, with the latest, "Terminator: Dark Fate," straight up bombing in 2019. But with a $669 million domestic total — $1.085 billion adjusted for inflation — we suspect the series will be back.

You may have never heard of "Billy Jack," but if you were going to movies in the 1970s you couldn't have missed him. Before there was John Rambo, there was Billy Jack, a half-Navajo ex-Green Beret and master of Hapkido, who first appeared in 1967's "The Born Losers." Billy Jack was the brainchild of husband-and-wife team Tom Laughlin and Delores Taylor. Laughlin also played the title role and directed the films under a pseudonym, T.C. Franks, presumably to not look like an egomaniac. He shouldn't have been so modest. 

"The Born Losers" was a huge hit, earning $36 million domestically in 1967 ($290 million adjusted for inflation). Despite these numbers, Laughlin and Taylor had trouble securing financing for the 1971 sequel, "Billy Jack," and eventually paid to distribute it themselves. That worked out well; "Billy Jack" made $98 million, which is — wait for it — $651 million adjusted for inflation. What?! The 1974 sequel, "The Trial of Billy Jack," added another $89 million to the series' purse ($485 million when adjusted for inflation), but later entries "Billy Jack Goes To Washington" (1977) and the unfinished "The Return of Billy Jack" (1985) never received proper theatrical releases. Still, with just three films, the "Billy Jack" series earned $223 million domestically, which adjusted for inflation equals $1.254 billion dollars.

The computer-animated era began with "Toy Story." Before Gru, Shrek, Po, or any CG character that has come since, there were Woody and Buzz Lightyear. The "Toy Story" tale goes all the way back to Pixar's pre-feature days, when the studio's short film "Tin Toy" won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 1988. Using the momentum from that, Pixar pitched Disney on a live-action feature version, which went into production in 1991, giving you an idea of how long CG animation takes. 

The scale of this project could not be underestimated. There had been CG shots and CG characters ... but an entire feature-length film? That was unheard of. Fortunately, the bet paid off and "Toy Story" didn't just do well; its $192 million domestic box office topped all for 1995. Besides launching its own four-film franchise, "Toy Story" ushered in a new era in animation, which Pixar's then-owner Steve Jobs predicted. Also impressive is how the series has continued to connect with fans of all ages for over 25 years, despite lengthy gaps between films. The "Toy Story" series has put $1.3 billion in its domestic toy chest, for an inflation-adjusted North American gross of $1.79 billion.

Some say academia isn't very lucrative, but nobody told that to Dr. Henry Jones, Jr., a.k.a. Indiana Jones. Of course, globetrotting and treasure hunting pays the bills, and the intrepid archaeologist is the highest-earning individual character on this list. No complicated mythologies. No massive ensembles. Just a fedora, a bullwhip, and Harrison Ford is all this series needs. In the late 1970s, Steven Spielberg was rejected twice for his dream job of directing a James Bond movie, the first time after "Jaws," because he wasn't deemed right for the assignment, and the second time after "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," when the producers thought he'd be too expensive. So legend has it his old buddy George Lucas brought Spielberg in to direct his big idea, an American answer to James Bond named Indiana ... Smith. 

Thankfully, they changed the name, though studios balked at the $20 million price tag and, shockingly, Spielberg as director, since he'd just had a huge bomb with "1941." Lucas stuck with Spielberg and they finally found a buyer in Paramount. It worked out pretty well for all parties. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" earned $225 million, topping the year-end box office and bringing Spielberg back to his winning ways. The Indy trio of Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford would return for three more films over the next 24 years, resulting in total domestic earnings of $919 million. That's impressive on its own, but when adjusted for inflation it's downright staggering — $2.074 billion.

Come on, were you expecting anything different? Given the number of sequels, spin-offs, cartoons, novelizations, and merchandise that the "Star Wars" series has spawned, it may be easy to forget it all started in George Lucas' brain. Arguably the most popular movie franchise of all time (the MCU has made more money, but "Star Wars" has a higher domestic average) and definitely the most popular cinema-first series of all time, "Star Wars" combined Lucas' diverse genre diet into one story. 

From Flash Gordon serials to John Ford's Westerns, from Akira Kurosawa samurai films to Joseph Campbell's mythology, "Star Wars" blends all of George Lucas' pop culture upbringing into a space opera that is even more ubiquitous and popular today than it was 44 years ago. And make no mistake, it was really popular 44 years ago. "Star Wars" grossed $460 million in 1977, which would be a huge hit today, but adjusted for inflation would be more than $2 billion! Pardon the pun, but that's out of this world, and makes "Star Wars" the second biggest ticket seller ever – a feat unlikely to be topped. Five decades and 11 films later, the series is still blasting into warp speed. With a total domestic box office of more than $5 billion, the "Star Wars" franchise has made $8.08 billion when adjusted for inflation (more than $6 billion more than the second series on this list, "The Fast Saga"), making it far and away the biggest blockbuster franchise not based on anything.