20 Highest-Grossing Movie Franchises Ranked Worst To Best

Worldwide box office: $2.97 billion.

Just as the Twilight Saga drew to a close, audiences were clambering for a new franchise to take its place. Luckily, they didn't have to wait long before Suzanne Collins' dystopian trilogy The Hunger Games made its way to the big screen, and proved to be a far better franchise than anyone was expecting.

Led by Jennifer Lawrence and an impossibly stacked cast of supporting stars, the four-film series was set in a distant future where class divides have destroyed society, and people from the poorer districts are forced to compete in an inhumane battle royale.

Tackling themes such as suppression, fascism, survival and class inequality with both sensitivity and understanding, the series continually one-up itself to become one of the most popular blockbuster series of the decade.

Admittedly, the last film struggled to maintain the overall quality of its predecessors since the final book was unwisely split into two, but even with this small bump The Hunger Games was a great little franchise, and one that's perhaps destined to be seen as a classic in the coming years.