Poll Suggestion: Most Lucrative Horror Franchises – Your Choice?

@Jessica​ 

Edited.

I'm a little confused. There are two lines in each option with "Approximate(ly)". The first are ...

Example: "ROI of whole franchise: Approximately 23x,"

Do they have to be changed, too? Or is "Approximately" correct at that point?

@Jessica​ 

I've added two additional worde for explaining in the intro:

... Please note: ROI means "Return On Investment"

"Approximately 23x" is correct.

@Peter_pbn​ 

Thank you, Peter. I'll care about. I guess I wrote that just while the income still grew.

@Breumaster​ 

Good point regarding Scream, thanks for bringing that up.

However, to keep the list consistent and not open to constant adjustments, I think it is important that we agree on using a single, fixed source for all box office data across every franchise.

Mixing different sources (for example The Numbers and Box Office Mojo) makes the totals difficult to verify and easy to challenge, since figures can vary depending on update cycles and aggregation methods.

For that reason, I suggest we standardize everything based on Box Office Mojo and explicitly state it as the reference. It is widely regarded as a stable and consistent source, even if it can be slightly slower with updates. At least IMBd is linked to boxofficemojo, so I used it as the source.

That way, all totals remain transparent, comparable, and defensible. And with the "as of line" I added should be clear that the data can change over time. Since it's "only" the Scream-franchise,

I'll correct it.

What do you think?

@Peter_pbn​ 

The Scream-franchise moved up now to position 7, because the ROI counted 1 up. It' now (depending on Boxofficemojo and The Numbers) at 5,7-6,2. So I chose Approximately 6!

I have now added a period at the end of the line:

"ROI of whole franchise: Approximately 23x."

Because the Android version of the display merges the separated lines. This is how it looks in the merged version:

ROI of whole franchise: Approximately 23x. Film budgets: 38 million dollars. Approximate Worldwide Gross (All Films): About 887 million dollars. First movie: Paranormal Activity (2007)

 While on Computer it looks like that:

ROI of whole franchise: Approximately 23x.

Film budgets: 38 million dollars.

Approximate Worldwide Gross (All Films): About 887 million dollars.

First movie: Paranormal Activity (2007)

I changed the comma with a period to avoid writing in big letters After a comma.

@Breumaster​ 

Did you also update the budget number for Scream? According to IMDb it's around 222 million for all seven.

@Peter_pbn​ 

Good point, thanks for checking that.

Yes, if Scream VII is included, the total production budget comes out to around 220 million dollars. I will update the numbers accordingly, as long as we consistently include the most recent released entries across all franchises.

That slightly adjusts the ROI, but it does not materially change the overall ranking.

Consistency across all entries is the key point here.

@Peter_pbn​ Scream now has an ROI of about 5,5. I have rounded up to 6, because the movie still runs and it's predictable that the income will grow.

@Peter_pbn​ 

Corrected.

Based on the numbers you list I would think that the ROI would be (1200m-220m)/220m = 4.5 or 450 percent

(even though this is a simplistic calculation)

@Peter_pbn​ 

That is a fair point if we were calculating true profit-based ROI.

However, since the numbers used here are box office grosses (which represent revenue, not net profit), subtracting the production budget does not actually result in a more accurate figure.

Studios only receive a portion of the box office, and additional costs like marketing are not included, so a true profit calculation is not possible with publicly available data.

For that reason, I am using a simple revenue multiple (gross divided by production budget), which directly reflects how many times the initial investment was multiplied at the box office.

That keeps the comparison transparent and consistent across all franchises.

@Breumaster​ 

I've once heard that a movie has to generate at least double of the nominate costs to create a financial break-even situation. If they gain less at the boxoffice, then it's a loss. But an exact count of numbers is to find nowhere. So I made a clear statement that should explain it exactly.

Maybe you shouldn't use the term ROI if you don't follow its definition.

@Peter_pbn​ 

That is a fair point.

Strictly speaking, this is not a classical profit-based ROI, but a simplified revenue multiple (worldwide gross divided by production budget).

I used the term in a more general sense, but I agree that “revenue multiple” is the more precise definition here.

The intention was simply to show how strongly each franchise performed relative to its production costs, using a consistent and comparable metric.

I'll work out a better name for it.

@Peter_pbn​ 

Peter, I've called it "Revenue multiple" now.