The future of "Star Wars" is streaming.
Last week, National Research Group (NRG) released a robust study that, in part, identified what it called the 20 "most powerful" entertainment brands right now based on 350,000 surveys conducted with consumers since January 2019, primarily via emails through online advertising using a variety of survey sampling companies.
Disney Plus' hit "Star Wars" live-action series, "The Mandalorian," topped the list, followed by Marvel's "Avengers" franchise, Netflix's "Stranger Things," and more.
In an interview with Business Insider, NRG's executive vice president of strategy, Ethan Titelman, said that the list doesn't necessarily rank the brands by popularity, though that is a factor. It moreso reflects a franchise's potential heading into the new year and beyond, or its "forward momentum."
"We want to understand the ingredients that make a franchise successful today," Titelman said.
The survey asked consumers a variety of questions about entertainment brands across movies, TV, and video games, ultimately creating an analysis of hundreds of brands. The questions included how excited the consumer was for new content from that franchise, how recently they had engaged with the brand, and how they'd like to engage with it in the future (if it's a movie franchise, for instance, if they'd like to see it branch off into TV or video games).
Notably absent from the list are Warner Bros. and DC brands like "Harry Potter" and "Batman" or major franchises like Universal's "Jurassic Park."
Titelman explained that "Batman" ranked No. 14, "Jurassic Park" No. 10, and "Harry Potter" No. 6 on NRG's list of most "popular" brands. But they didn't measure up in its "power" rankings, which measures excitement for future content rather than broad familiarity among consumers.
Disney was the company with the most powerful brands in the list.
More than half of the brands in the top 20 are from Disney and eight are from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the study counted each Marvel sub-brand as separate), showing that audiences are craving more content from the biggest movie franchise of all time after its long, coronavirus-related hiatus.
Hollywood disruptor Netflix cracked the top 10 with three brands: "Stranger Things," "The Witcher," and "Ozark."
Netflix's co-CEO Reed Hastings told The Hollywood Reporter in September that the company wants to build the kind of franchises Hollywood has like "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter," but "has a long way to go."
"The thing that many studios are able to do is create great franchises," Hastings said. "We're making great progress on that with 'Stranger Things' and other properties, but compared to 'Harry Potter' and 'Star Wars,' we've got a long way to go."
NRG said in its study that movie studios "are increasingly facing new franchise competition."
The coronavirus pandemic, which has devastated Hollywood this year, has accelerated that, as studios have been experimenting with alternative release strategies to theaters. Disney debuted its "Mulan" reboot on Disney Plus at a premium fee while Warner Bros. "Wonder Woman 1984" and its entire slate of 2021 movies on HBO Max the same day they hit theaters.
Here are the top 20 "power brands" from NRG's study: