Today marks the day Disney release the new range of Star Wars merchandise, the 4th September. Get it? The fourth be with you…
Back in 2012, Disney purchased Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars for $4.05 billion, money which Disney will undoubtedly see again with the release of three news films and a whole range of Star Wars products. The first of these films titled The Force Awakens, the seventh instalment in the movie franchise, will be hitting the big screen in December this year with Disney gearing up for the big event today with “Force Friday”.
Force Friday plays host to product reveals on the official Star Wars YouTube channel, adding additional excitement to the movie as these products will likely be the first glimpse of characters, names, spaceships, weapons, battles and planets. Something which you may want to look at for or avoid entirely, depending on your outlook on spoilers.
Star Wars merchandise success
Star Wars merchandise is big business, most notably with toy sales of around $12 billion since the release of the first movie in 1977. But toys are not the only area of success for Star Wars merchandise, here is a list of revenue from Star Wars merchandise:
- Toys – $12 billion
- DVD – $3.8 billion
- Video Games – $2.8 billion
- Books – $1.8 billion
- Other – $1.3 billion
Not bad numbers when you consider the films took $4.3 billion in box office.
Disney is smart in releasing the movie in December too, knowing fans across the world will have deep burning desires to own the latest products relating to their favourite movie franchise. No doubt the brand new video game, Star Wars Battlefront will help boost revenue numbers for 2015. Of course Disney is already doing remarkably well having recorded revenue of $45 billion in 2014, with $10.7 billion of that being profits.
There can be no doubt that the latest extension of the already successful Star Wars franchise will boost sales for years to come. Analysts are predicted $5 billion revenue for 2015 in toys sales alone…