4. The Twilight Saga - $3,337,496,722 (Combined)
What more is there left to say about the film series so legendarily bad that other films have taken to directly criticising it? (And no, I don't mean those dreadfully unfunny Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer parodies; Julianne Moore's character in Crazy, Stupid, Love rails explicitly against it). Perhaps that it's the ninth most successful film franchise of all time, ahead of mostly decent series such as Indiana Jones, Mission: Impossible, Terminator, and Toy Story, with box office receipts jumping from a mere $392 million for the first Twilight to a whopping $822 million for Breaking Dawn Part 2. Factoring in the $650 million additionally made through home media sales, that's nearly $4 billion that the franchise has robbed the taxpayer of. Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against romance per se and it's not that there aren't interesting themes touched upon: the dynamics of a relationship between a human and a vampire, the fine line between attraction and urge to kill (not really apparent in opinions on the series), and the metaphor for abstinence, but these are barely developed beyond the first film. Despite the plethora of obstacles thrust in front of them, you never doubted, however much you wished, that any were going to present a sustained threat to the harmony of Edward and Bella's relationship. Things looked up briefly in Eclipse with the return of Victoria and her unborn army, but after being built up for virtually the entire film the final confrontation was over in a matter of minutes and had no effect on the overall story. Breaking Dawn was then split into two films for obvious financial reasons, with both then proving too sparse in content and substance to justify the division on cinematic grounds. The acting of the main cast was poor throughout, Kristen Stewart in particular never seeming capable of closing her mouth, and the dialogue regularly peaked at so bad it's good standards. It's one franchise for sure that most are now glad to see the back of, even though we're already seeing a glut of upcoming ones competing for the prestigious title of the new Twilight. Please don't perpetuate it....