As 2022 winds down, it’s become apparent that it’s been a pretty special year for movies. The MCU continued to dominate our screens, Dwayne Johnson declared the hierarchy of power in the DCEU changed forever with the advent of Black Adam, Top Gun: Maverick showed there is still room for an old-school kind of summer blockbuster, Jurassic World: Dominion reunited the nostalgia of our favourite paleontologists of yesteryear with modern-era Chris Pratt… and of course, we’ve most recently revisited Pandora and become obsessed with blue aliens once again as Avatar: The Way of Water makes a splash on the big screen.
All of that success means that butts were in seats at your local cinema, people were streaming to their hearts’ content, and the wonderful Fandom community was diving DEEP into their favourite wikis to learn more about these crazy worlds we escape into. This time of year, we like to crunch those numbers for you and look at what movie wikis were the most popular throughout 2022 – from our ever-growing MCU wiki to the trusty Star Wars companion, Wookieepedia, plus we dust off the cobwebs of the Alien vs Predator wiki as one of the year’s surprise hits reminds a classic franchise how it’s done. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the Top 10 Fandom movie communities, in reverse order.
10. Pirates of the Caribbean
Ahoy! Strange one to start off, because it’s hard to gauge exactly why our Pirates of the Caribbean community was the 10th most popular wiki of 2022. No major anniversaries and no reboots or sequels announced. However, unless you were living under a rock this year, you may have seen that Johnny Depp aka Captain Jack Sparrow was in the news a fair amount.
Legal drama aside, it did return the iconic, swashbuckling pirate to our attention and may have given rise to a few rewatches among the Fandom community (I can confirm I fired up the first three films during the summer). Maybe the outcome of the trial led to people seeing if a return of Jack Sparrow was in the works, or perhaps people just wanted to check in and remind themselves what Captain Barbossa was doing.
There’s also the small matter of the woman-fronted Pirates of the Caribbean 6 movie that was in the works at Disney — with Margot Robbie in the lead role. But was is the operative word here — in November, Robbie suggested in an interview with Vanity Fair that the project was dead in the water: “We had an idea and we were developing it for a while, ages ago, to have more of a female-led — not totally female-led but just a different kind of story — which we thought would’ve been really cool, but I guess they don’t want to do it,” she said.
If another Pirates project were to go ahead, the wiki is a good place to start formulating ideas. Perhaps the influx of visitors was all those Disney executives scampering to find another angle quick sharp…
9. DC Extended Universe
Look, while Black Adam might not have changed the hierarchy of power in the DCEU forever, it certainly has been a busy year on and off-screen for the franchise. With only one feature film release (Black Adam) and one television release (Peacemaker), DC wasn’t as active as its Marvel counterpart – but both outputs gave rise to HUGE discussion and definitely had Fandom users browsing the wiki.
Peacemaker delivered action, humour, and a surprising amount of pathos (James Gunn is a dream isn’t he?) while introducing plenty of new characters for people to read up on, while Black Adam literally brought Henry Cavill back as the Man of Steel (also dreamy). On top of that, we’ve had the Ezra Miller/Flash controversy, a new trailer for Shazam! Fury of the Gods (as well as that spectacular combined Black Adam/Shazam! Fury of the Gods San Diego Comic-Con panel in which Dwayne Johnson FLOATED in character*), and just the oh-so-tiny matter of a tremendous shake-up at the top as DC finally finds its Kevin Feige-like figures in James Gunn and Peter Safran.
Suffice to say, there was a lot going on for the DCEU (which now looks to be morphing to the E-free DCU) — and so, naturally, quite a few of you were keeping yourselves abreast of all things DC.
*he didn’t actually float
8. Pixar
Much like Disney (SPOILER: we’re getting to them!), Pixar has had plenty of positives this year, and the Fandom community has dived into their wiki with vigour. Though one was a box office disappointment and the other an acclaimed movie sent straight to Disney+, Lightyear and Turning Red both brought on a lot of attention, the first reconceptualizing a classic character, while the other introduced a beautiful and strikingly progressive story to new audiences. And of course, we were treated to Sox in Lightyear, so any excuse to read more about him really.
But also, Pixar has some of the most rewatchable films in human history so it’s never exactly far from our pop culture conscience. There’s no judgement from us here at Fandom if you spend your spare time diving into the wiki pages of Dug or Héctor Rivera – you treat yourself!
7. Alien Vs. Predator
There’s one big reason for this wiki, known as Xenopedia, being so popular, and we all know what it is – Prey. Dan Trachtenberg’s Native American prequel to the Predator series was one of the biggest surprises of the year, blowing audiences away with its hard-hitting action sequences, cultural respect, and expansion of existing lore. Star Amber Midthunder impressed as Comanche hunter Naru, and established herself in the mythology as a legit badass protagonist to rival Ellen Ripley.
Seriously, if you haven’t watched Prey yet, rectify that now. Stop reading this article and go fire it up… just please come back otherwise my editor will kill me.
6. How To Train Your Dragon
A franchise with incredible staying power marks another surprise entry in our Most Popular Wikis – How To Train Your Dragon. No feature film releases in 2022 has meant nothing to the Fandom community; they have consistently followed along as the franchise saw three seasons of Dragons: Rescue Riders and three seasons of Dragons: The Nine Realms release this year.
Any of these could have pushed you back in time to the release of the original film (a classic), leaving you to lose hours reading about Toothless, Stormfly, or Hookfang, or, indeed, brushing up on your character history for Jay Baruchel’s Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.
5. Jurassic Park
Returning to our screens in 2022 with Jurassic World: Dominion, the franchise that ignited the prehistoric imaginations of millions — Jurassic Park — blended nostalgia with modernity as the original stars of Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum teamed with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas-Howard. While the new film may not have been the final send-off that many hoped it would be for the OG cast, it definitely got the Fandom community engaging with all things dino once more — to Jurassic proportions you could say (I’ll see myself out).
Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom didn’t have the most seamless of plots, so you’d be forgiven for checking what B.D. Wong’s Henry Wu is up to, or asking what Neill’s Alan Grant has been doing all this time. Hey, maybe you just wanted to read about Velociraptors. Who can blame you?
4. Harry Potter
As if by magic, the Harry Potter wiki is as popular as ever and honestly, that isn’t changing anytime soon. We were treated to the third installment of the Fantastic Beasts series with Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, a film that was pretty fun for a spin-off based on a child’s textbook. Fandom readers no doubt wanted to brush up on Credence Barebone/Aurelius Dumbledore (his character made it into Fandom’s Top 10 Characters of 2022) as well as remind themselves of the difference between an Augurey and a Thunderbird. Or maybe they just wanted to decide on their favourite Quidditch team (don’t pick the Chudley Cannons, ask Ron).
With Harry Potter and the Cursed Child still enjoying unprecedented success across the world in book form and on the stage, a new open-world video game to come next year in Hogwarts Legacy, and the original films and books maintaining their status as a global phenomenon many years after release, it’s likely we’ll be back here in 2023 as it makes it into our most popular wikis list yet again.
3. Marvel Cinematic Universe
The dominant force of global cinema and television had a pretty strange year in 2022, as it branched out narratively and stylistically across its cinematic releases and Disney+ shows with some mixed results. Anyone crying out that the MCU is declining in popularity needs a firm talking to given the box office numbers, and more importantly, the number of readers checking out the Fandom wiki – but it is fair to say that the MCU is in an intriguing place.
Thor: Love and Thunder left fans pretty disappointed following on from Ragnarok, while Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness never felt like the groundbreaking comic book film it was touted to be (despite the post-credits introduction of Charlize Theron’s Clea, which definitely got you searching for information). Meanwhile, on the television front, Marvel gave us Ms. Marvel (and THAT needle-drop tease), Moon Knight (who doesn’t love Hippos) and She-Hulk (K.E.V.I.N. didn’t work for me, but maybe it did for you).
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever rounded the year off in style with a beautiful tribute to the legacy of Chadwick Boseman while telling a compelling story setting up the future of Wakanda-based films and shows. Oh… and they introduced Namor, one of the earliest Marvel characters, played by the incredible Tenoch Huerta Mejía.
In classic MCU fashion, however, Easter eggs reigned supreme, the world only got bigger and more expansive, and hardcore fans were left with their favourite homework – deep-diving the wiki for anything they might have missed and little nuggets of knowledge to drop at their next MCU watch party (yes, I’m referring to myself).
2. Disney
Disney found itself our second most popular film wiki after a pretty up-and-down year for the media giant. Though they had varied responses from wild acclaim to a couple of box office duds, Walt Disney Studios had plenty of high profile releases in both theaters and streaming through 2022, including Lightyear, Turning Red, Hocus Pocus 2, Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, Strange World, and one of the seemingly three dozen Pinocchios that have come out.
Disney also cropped up in the news for various reasons, namely its stance on LGBTQ+ laws in Florida, as well as the return of Bob Iger/departure of Bob Chapek – but we like to keep it nice and breezy here at Fandom, so let’s focus on the movies. Lightyear was a pretty big success and tied into Toy Story lore seamlessly, but you’d be forgiven for feeling the compulsion to check up on a few things… I did.
1. Star Wars
Without a feature film release since 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (audible sigh), you could be forgiven for thinking that there would be a decline in traffic to the Fandom Star Wars wiki aka Wookieepedia. Let me tell you… you’d be about as wrong as the Jedi Council when they kept hanging out with Palpatine, failing to realise he was a pretty bad Sith. Whoops. We forgave the Jedi, so we can forgive you. The Star Wars Wiki was Fandom’s most popular movie wiki of 2022, seeing double the numbers of our second most popular page. Impressive. Most impressive.
But why? Well, we were treated to some action in a galaxy far, far away on Disney+ this year, with the interesting but ultimately disappointing for some Book of Boba Fett, followed at year’s end by Andor, quite possibly the best Star Wars content since the original trilogy – yes, I said it — and a contender for best overall TV show of 2022. Who’d have thought it for a prequel to a prequel nobody thought they wanted? Never discount Tony Gilroy, who created the series.
And in between that, we just had the small matter of an Obi-Wan Kenobi series which only went and brought back Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen in the roles of Kenobi and Anakin/Darth Vader respectively and had the Star Wars fandom (small ‘f’) agog. So you know, a pretty chill year for the Star Wars/Disney partnership.
Fandom readers were happily re-familiarising themselves with the expansive canon, whether that be what happened in the animated series, who the hell Cassian Andor is again, or what makes a Rancor such a wonderful house pet.
Check out more Fandom Top 10 Lists of 2022 when you head to the home page.