A franchise refers to a series of films that fall under the same license and which feature the same characters and a coherent storyline. Creative agencies (such as comic book studios or book publishers) license their content exclusively to filmmakers, and the resulting films (connected to those storylines and characters) are known as franchise films. They are the property of a single licensee (e.g., Warner Bros or Sony). This would include, for example, the Avengers movies, Iron Man, Harry Potter, etc.