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There were almost no big franchises in 1977 (ex Bond). Godfather & French Connection had just done something new by having a sequel.
There were a few films starring repeat characters like The Unknown Gunslinger aka Eastwood in the the 'greed' western trilogy & Charles Bronson's revenge taking vigilante's success spawned a few more films. In both cases each movie was unrelated to the previous one except the lead character's presence. Dirty Harry & Bond were (almost) the same (3/5 movies made by then) - few other roles/settings might be common.
For the most part sequels was something 'B-movies' dabbled with. And all this was still relatively new (most of this occured in the previous 8-10 years to Star Wars). Amongst big studio productions Star Wars was the 1st ever trilogy let alone a longer franchise. Around that time (70s/early 80s) some B movie comedy franchises like Carry On series & National Lampoon etc started building franchises with their (& Monty Python's) initial success. But Star Wars led to Superman/Terminator & then others followed in increasing numbers as people sought comfort in the familiar in an increasingly insecure/uncertain environment. Superhero's were the perfect goldmine staring studios in the face but it took Marvel to maximise the milking to the point of infinity.
Reuters: How Netflix plans to find its inner "Star Wars" Jul 18, 18:20
the thing about Star Wars is NOBODY WAS TRYING TO MAKE A FRANCHISE when they made Star Wars Jul 18, 18:31
There were almost no big franchises in 1977 (ex Bond). Godfather & French Connection had just done something new by having a sequel. Jul 18, 23:03
* '3/5 made by then' was for Dirty Harry not Bond {nm} Jul 18, 23:06