What are the Most Expensive Movie Trilogies of All Time?

One of the most The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has already run up a $745 million price tag when you take into account the production budget on all three movies. Make no mistake, that’s a lot of money, and it really calls into question the so-called $281 million budget for the first three Lord of the Rings movies, but that’s what’s been reported, though I have seen it as high as $310 million.

Taking all this into account I decided to start doing a little research so I hit up Box Office Mojo (and Wikipedia when necessary) in an attempt to find out just what exactly are the most expensive movie trilogies of all-time and I have a list of 50 of them directly below.

The order is based on the reported budget without taking inflation into account, though on 13 of them I did include some adjusted for inflation numbers for comparison sake.

What do we learn? Well, while The Hobbit trilogy may have the overall largest reported price tag for an trilogy in history, you adjust for inflation and the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies beat it by almost $50 million and Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man movies come up just $11 million shy. It’s also interesting to see The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and 2 cost almost 1.5 times the first three movies combined.

It’s also amazing to look at the adjusted for inflation number for the original Star Wars trilogy and having it come out to $175.6 million. That’s an adjusted number, which means you could make at least 12 films on par with the original Star Wars movies for the price of three Hobbit movies. Now, granted, that’s very much a simplification of matters, but it does add quite a bit of perspective.

With all that said, here are the numbers as I’ve collected them. I will try and add a few more adjusted for inflation numbers and perhaps an entire list adjusted for inflation, but that will take some time. I’ve also added the fourth movie in some franchises under the trilogy totals for a little perspective and broken out some film franchises into two separate trilogies.

  1. $745mThe Hobbit trilogy
  2. $665mPirates of the Caribbean trilogy (first three) [$793.1m adjusted for inflation]
    • $250mPirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
  3. $597m – Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy [$734.1m adjusted for inflation]
  4. $585mThe Dark Knight trilogy
  5. $560mThe Chronicles of Narnia trilogy
  6. $560mTransformers trilogy
    • $210mTransformers: Age of Extinction
  7. $550mHarry Potter trilogy (second three)
    • $250mHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 & 2
  8. $540mIron Man trilogy
  9. $458mThe Hunger Games trilogy (estimated)
  10. $445mMen in Black trilogy
  11. $395mX-Men trilogy (first three)
  12. $370mFast and Furious trilogy (second three)
  13. $370mMadagascar trilogy
  14. $370mShrek trilogy (first three)
    • $165mShrek Forever After
  15. $363mThe Matrix trilogy
  16. $355mHarry Potter trilogy (first three)
  17. $343mStar Wars (prequel trilogy) [$452m adjusted for inflation]
  18. $323mThe Mummy trilogy
  19. $320mToy Story trilogy
  20. $308.4mTerminator trilogy (first three) [$450m adjusted for inflation]
    • $200mTerminator Salvation
  21. $281mLord of the Rings trilogy
  22. $280mOcean’s trilogy
  23. $270mThe Expendables trilogy
  24. $263mRush Hour trilogy [$47m adjusted for inflation]
  25. $245mBourne trilogy (first three)
    • $125mThe Bourne Legacy
  26. $218mThe Hangover trilogy
  27. $215mBatman (Burton and Schumacher first three)
    • $125mBatman & Robin
  28. $199mFast and Furious (first three)
  29. $166mRiddick trilogy
  30. $159mBlade trilogy
  31. $155mTwilight (first three)
    • $230mThe Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 & 2
  32. $112.5mAustin Powers trilogy
  33. $102mBig Momma’s House trilogy
  34. $99mBack to the Future trilogy
  35. $94mIndiana Jones (first three) [$205.8m adjusted for inflation]
    • $185mIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
  36. $85mBeverly Hills Cop trilogy
  37. $81mStar Trek (next three) [$155.5m adjusted for inflation]
  38. $73.2mStar Trek (first three) [$184.9m adjusted for inflation]
  39. $73mThe Godfather trilogy [$199.2m adjusted for inflation]
  40. $70mRoboCop trilogy [$128.1m adjusted for inflation]
  41. $61.5mStar Wars (original trilogy) [$175.6m adjusted for inflation]
  42. $59.5mTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy [$100.5m adjusted for inflation]
  43. $43.95mCrocodile Dundee trilogy
  44. $38mThree Flavours Cornetto trilogy
  45. $36.5mJackass trilogy
  46. $31.8mSaw (next three)
  47. $15.2mSaw (first three)
  48. $14.9mEvil Dead trilogy
  49. $8.2mBefore Sunrise, Sunset and Midnight
  50. $2mThe Dollars Trilogy [$15m adjusted for inflation]
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