When the final Harry Potter movie hits theaters next month, it will mark the end of the highest-grossing franchise in the history of movies (on an unadjusted basis). So far the movies have earned $6.3 billion at the global box office. If the next film performs as well as last year’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, the franchise total will approach $7.3 billion. Considering the final Potter film will have the advantage of ticket price hiking 3-D, it could earn even more.

So Harry Potter has been a boon for the overall box office and anything that makes the box office numbers look better is good for Hollywood. No studio executives want to see stories about shrinking audiences and sinking revenue. That just helps to turn people off to the already high-priced experience of going to the movies.

But Harry Potter has also helped the struggling DVD market. According to IHS Screen Digest, U.S. spending on DVDs (including Blu-ray) grew 1.6% over April and the first two weeks of May thanks to the DVD release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Of course the video market is still down 15% year-over-year but the decline improved by 6% over the first quarter dip.

The halo benefit of a film like Harry Potter is that it drives people to stores to buy the new film. And while there, they might pick up some older movies.

“Catalog features are still the biggest single category by unit-sales,” says Tom Adams of IHS Screen Digest. “Catalog sales jump whenever a big, heavily advertised title comes through: since you’re in the video department in response, why not take a look around and see what bargains there might be. And with catalog titles at prices from $3.50 to $15–depending on age and popularity, there are certainly bargains.”

People are more driven to buy physical copies of a movie if that DVD box is adding to a collection (like with Harry Potter). With the end in sight for the series, there will be fewer reasons for people to buy movies.

And while there are plenty of franchises in the works, it’s doubtful any of those teed-up for the next few years will achieve Harry Potter level success. The most anticipated upcoming film series is The Hunger Games which I’ve written about here , here and here. The three book series is being split into four movies but it will still likely be more of a Twilight-sized hit. That franchise (which is also winding down) has so far earned $1.8 billion a the global box office.

There are always superhero franchises like Iron Man and Batman, but they don’t seem to inspire the same level of fan mania that you get from Harry Potter.

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