Harry Potter was a smash hit about a boy discovering he’s a wizard and going to school in a magical world full of wonder and adventure. Twilight didn’t hit quite that high a note, but the story of a teenage girl who learns her classmate is a vampire and falls in love with him did quite well. The Hunger Games popularized the dystopian genre with a bow wielding teenager stepping up to survive death games, have angsty romances, and fight the power.
As far as I can tell, nothing has quite hit that same kind of high since and it may be awhile until the next truly big wave. But if it were up to you, what would the next big thing be about?
A lot of that is a direct result of copyright extensions. Disney and other copyrights holders have distorted copyright from an intentionally limited duration monopoly intended to promote the creation of works into effectively infinite duration “intellectual property” that stifles the creation of works.
What should have happened/should happen to these genre defining works is that they should have lost their copyrights and become public domain after at most 28 years. At which point anyone would have been able to make their own “Star Wars”, “Lord of the Rings”, etc. works which would allow the works to become genres of their own. Instead we get perpetual “intellectual property” franchises.