These "legacy" studios hold the largest market shares and maintain extensive libraries of world-famous franchises.

The 21st century has been defined by two dominant forces: the franchise universe and the streaming wars. The Walt Disney Company, under the leadership of Bob Iger, perfected the franchise model with its acquisition of Marvel Entertainment (2009), Lucasfilm (2012), and 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets (2019). The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), beginning with Iron Man in 2008, created an interconnected web of films and television shows that culminated in Avengers: Endgame (2019), one of the highest-grossing films of all time. This era of intellectual property (IP) dominance saw Warner Bros. attempt its own (missteps and all) DC Extended Universe and Sony leverage its Spider-Man universe. Concurrently, the rise of streaming platforms—Netflix, Amazon Studios, Apple TV+, and Disney+—has fundamentally disrupted traditional distribution. These new "studios" prioritize data-driven content, binge-releasing entire seasons and greenlighting projects based on algorithmic predictions. Netflix’s Stranger Things and Squid Game became global phenomena without a traditional theatrical window, proving that the studio’s new power lies not just in production, but in owning the direct pipeline to the consumer.