What other franchises could become as popular as Star Wars?

By popular I mean that material based on the universe is always being made in some form or another. Like after the OT, lots of books were being made about the characters. Lots of these stories didn't even involve the OT main cast, but random characters in the background or even new characters entirely that became very popular. Just look at Wookiepedia, so many long articles. I would spend hours on that site, like as if it was TV tropes or Wikipedia itself. So, without star wars is there any franchise that could take it's place in having an expanded universe that keeps interests in the stories, and has such an extensive universe like the old republic era?

Something important about the star wars franchise, is that it's expanded universe doesn't have to focus on the main movie characters to be popular. Just look at swtor, Kotor, the legacy era,etc.

Some possibilities: Halo, Harry Potter( a name change would be in order though)
 
How about if the Princess Bride ends up becoming a blockbuster instead of a cult hit?

I think the key is that you have to have a good sandbox within this world for authors to play within, and the initial movie has to throw you into an alternate world that has hooks into our own narratives, like Star Wars.

The Tolkeinverse is another strong possibility, if his sons had not exercised as much IP control.
 
Star Trek and Doctor Who both have extended multiverses, but a key difference is that both franchises openly told people the spin-off material was secondary to the main franchise, and the fact they both ran more as television series and serials made these contractions much more likely to appear.

Lucasfilm maintained the public image of a single cohesive universe for the entirety of the Expanded Universe's lifespan in the very same way Disney markets the new Canon today. While it always came secondary in the same sense, Lucasfilm never emphacized this publicly and more importantly, Star Wars was a film franchise for thirty years with only six films before any television episodes began appearing, so the illusion of cohesive continuity was much simpler. You had three years to change one film not to interfere with the spin-off material instead of a couple months to make sure twenty episodes didn't interfere.

Harry Potter, for the record, would never work. J. K. Rowling is very much the mother of her work. Nobody else has been allowed too far into that play pen. George Lucas, for all of his oft-acknowledged flaws, only occasionally interfered with the expanded universe spin-off material, since he could supercede in his movies anyway. He actually put a fair amount of effort into avoiding those issues during the prequels.
 
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century perhaps? I remember the series in the 1980's where new characters were introduced throughout the series. Could be the basis for an expanded universe. The main thing that may put some off is the cheesiness of the late 70's / early 80's series starring Gil Gerard.
 
Maybe, the wizard of Oz, since if you look on Wikipedia it already has a great world for being a sandbox. It doesn't even have to focus on Dorothy and the gang. Perhaps the Cthulhu mythos as well?
 
Cthulhu Mythos is one of the best ideas, because it was really something that intended as an open sandbox. I think a lot of people are still thinking in terms of in-universe story potential but not necessarily in terms of real-life 'franchise potential'. Some companies and authors don't like others playing in their sandbox. That's important to think about. It's probably best to avoid something hitting from a single author altogether, as one author for a long period can still cause people to have trouble allowing or imagining another author.
 
By popular I mean that material based on the universe is always being made in some form or another. Like after the OT, lots of books were being made about the characters. Lots of these stories didn't even involve the OT main cast, but random characters in the background or even new characters entirely that became very popular. Just look at Wookiepedia, so many long articles. I would spend hours on that site, like as if it was TV tropes or Wikipedia itself. So, without star wars is there any franchise that could take it's place in having an expanded universe that keeps interests in the stories, and has such an extensive universe like the old republic era?

Something important about the star wars franchise, is that it's expanded universe doesn't have to focus on the main movie characters to be popular. Just look at swtor, Kotor, the legacy era,etc.

Some possibilities: Halo, Harry Potter( a name change would be in order though)

Back to the future, Bill & Ted, the Thing

Neil Gailman´s Sandman is very hard to film but it could be a good mystery show.
 
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Yun-shuno

Banned
By popular I mean that material based on the universe is always being made in some form or another. Like after the OT, lots of books were being made about the characters. Lots of these stories didn't even involve the OT main cast, but random characters in the background or even new characters entirely that became very popular. Just look at Wookiepedia, so many long articles. I would spend hours on that site, like as if it was TV tropes or Wikipedia itself. So, without star wars is there any franchise that could take it's place in having an expanded universe that keeps interests in the stories, and has such an extensive universe like the old republic era?

Something important about the star wars franchise, is that it's expanded universe doesn't have to focus on the main movie characters to be popular. Just look at swtor, Kotor, the legacy era,etc.

Some possibilities: Halo, Harry Potter( a name change would be in order though)
Your mistaken in what respect after ROTJ until Timothy Zahn wrote the heir to the empire-the franchise was essentially moribund.
 

Yun-shuno

Banned
Star Trek and Doctor Who both have extended multiverses, but a key difference is that both franchises openly told people the spin-off material was secondary to the main franchise, and the fact they both ran more as television series and serials made these contractions much more likely to appear.

Lucasfilm maintained the public image of a single cohesive universe for the entirety of the Expanded Universe's lifespan in the very same way Disney markets the new Canon today. While it always came secondary in the same sense, Lucasfilm never emphacized this publicly and more importantly, Star Wars was a film franchise for thirty years with only six films before any television episodes began appearing, so the illusion of cohesive continuity was much simpler. You had three years to change one film not to interfere with the spin-off material instead of a couple months to make sure twenty episodes didn't interfere.

Harry Potter, for the record, would never work. J. K. Rowling is very much the mother of her work. Nobody else has been allowed too far into that play pen. George Lucas, for all of his oft-acknowledged flaws, only occasionally interfered with the expanded universe spin-off material, since he could supercede in his movies anyway. He actually put a fair amount of effort into avoiding those issues during the prequels.
Also there was a cohesive continuity it was so difficult before 2014 to explain this to Star Wars fans G canon-movies, T canon-tv shows(clone wars), C canon-books/comics, s canon-secondary canon-basically old marvel stuff that was often integrated into C(ex. Lumiya, Nagai), N-canon-infinities and the like, D canon-detours amusement park I think.

Is it somewhat complicated? For beginners yes-but for EU fans it was sensible and I swear in Jesus name worked!
 
Planet of the Apes.
Make the sequels more action adventure blockbusters and less distopian in tone.
Maybe the series progresses centuries between movies and we wind up with time traveling apes and humans fighting space battles.
 
Warhammer 40K.

Make a greater emphasis on EU and computer games and you can get a more rooted presence in pop culture (Heck, make a proper 40K movie unlike that Ultramarines hash job).
 
Arguably this is OTL with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Well actually, I read that Marvel only survived to the present day because it was publishing star wars comics, but without Star Wars Marvel will end up being bought by DC as it was losing money. So that butterflies the MCU as well as a lot of the marvel universe since it was absorbed into DC, with the Justice league overshadowing the avengers or the avengers not existing.:confused:
 
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