As the most in-demand title in both the United States and many international markets, Game of Thrones is a global phenomenon. Its success has bolstered the profile of fantasy shows. This analysis examines which other fantasy titles are currently in high demand.
The Demand Expressions™ for 50 fantasy series were averaged over the month of May. While Game of Thrones naturally dominates, other popular series appear among the top ten fantasy shows:
Game of Thrones has almost 4.5 times more demand than the next-most popular fantasy show, ABC’s Once Upon a Time. Other currently-airing titles, the dark fantasies Penny Dreadful and Preacher, also rank highly; this is especially impressive for Preacher which only premiered on May 22nd.
All three of the CW’s fantasy series—Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, and The Originals—appear in the top ten, though spin-off The Originals has slightly more demand than its parent show The Vampire Diaries. The remaining titles in the top ten have around half the demand of The Vampire Diaries, which is reasonable as these series were not on the air during May.
Many of these fantasy titles are clearly popular in their own right, but the fantasy genre as a whole compares well to other niche genres. After excluding the outlier Game of Thrones, fantasy shows had an average of 1,961,089 Demand Expressions™, more than the average of 1,245,456 Demand Expressions™ for science fiction titles. However, even with Game of Thrones, demand for fantasy series is about half as much as for the king of nerdy genres: superhero shows. However, as demand for Game of Thrones and other popular series, such as Preacher, grows, the fantasy genre may someday become as mainstream as superheroes are now.
