Franchises That Began on Film

Godzilla began with Toho's 1954 film, directed by Ishiro Honda, in which a monster awakened by nuclear testing was widely read as a direct response to Japan's experience of the atomic bombings and the Lucky Dragon 5 hydrogen bomb incident that same year. Toho has since made more than thirty Godzilla films, and the franchise is credited with founding the kaiju genre in Japanese cinema.

Rocky began with the 1976 film that Sylvester Stallone wrote on spec and starred in as boxer Rocky Balboa, a film that went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Five sequels followed between 1979 and 2006, and the franchise was extended into the Creed spin off series beginning in 2015.

Star Wars began with George Lucas's single 1977 film, later retitled Episode IV, A New Hope. It has since grown across three film trilogies, stand alone films and television series such as The Mandalorian and Andor, with its films alone grossing more than ten billion dollars worldwide.

Halloween began with John Carpenter's 1978 film starring Jamie Lee Curtis, made on a budget of about 300,000 dollars against a gross of roughly 70 million. It is credited, alongside Black Christmas, with establishing the masked killer and final girl conventions of the slasher genre, and has since grown to thirteen films.

Alien began with Ridley Scott's 1979 film, its parasitic creature designed by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger. James Cameron's 1986 sequel Aliens reframed the series as action horror, and Scott later returned to direct the prequel films Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

Indiana Jones began with Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, a George Lucas and Steven Spielberg tribute to the serial adventure films of the 1930s and 1940s starring Harrison Ford. Four more films followed across more than four decades, sending the archaeologist hero after artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail.

Terminator began with James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd's 1984 film The Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cyborg assassin sent back in time by the artificial intelligence Skynet. The 1991 sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day became a landmark of computer generated visual effects for its liquid metal T-1000 antagonist.

Toy Story began with Pixar's 1995 film, directed by John Lasseter, the first entirely computer animated feature film ever made. Its story of toys led by Woody and Buzz Lightyear grew into four main films through 2019, with Toy Story 3 becoming the first animated film to gross more than a billion dollars worldwide.

The Matrix began with the Wachowskis' 1999 film about a programmer named Neo who discovers his world is a simulated reality. Its bullet time visual effect, freezing action while the camera appears to move around it, became one of the most imitated techniques in film and advertising of its era.

Fast and Furious began with a single 2001 film about illegal street racing in Los Angeles, starring Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. Over more than a dozen main and spin off films it evolved into a globe spanning action series that has grossed more than six billion dollars worldwide, one of the highest grossing franchises in history.