Half of all Star Wars revenue has come from TOYS

[samurainoir]

(and video games)

[MIB41]

Absolutely! No surprise there. 90% of the prequels seem to be predicated on pushing toys.

[Nostalgiabuff]

the toys were always the big money maker there. that's why people always said Lucas was so smart, because his original deal with Fox gave him all merchandising rights

[phil]

Interesting to have this confirmed but it's no surprise.

[enyawd72]

What I find most interesting about these statistics is how much money Kenner made during it's eight year run vs. Hasbro's sixteen year run. And this is despite the prequels and much higher toy prices now. Kenner had much stronger sales thirty years ago.

[samurainoir]

Yeah, much less competition back in the day too... that was back when kids actually played with action figures almost universally vs the split attention with video games. I think it just shows that the collectors market that seems to drive the modern toy cycle, is in fact not as huge as we believe it to be. Look at the shear mountain of product as well compared to the original vintage line. We don't have exact figures here but this possibly would mean figure for figure etc, the original Star Wars line outsold any of the modern stuff by a huge degree. (although have these numbers been adjusted for inflation?)

It would be interesting to compare the ratio of toys to box office that Pixar does.

Given the disappointing performance of John Carter, and ZERO toys one the shelf for that film, it makes sense that Disney's next move after that was to buy Star Wars (and Marvel). They now OWN the boys toy aisle for the most part.

[samurainoir]

[Hedji]

Yup, Disney just bought a money-printing machine. I do my part to generate that $27,000,000,000, that's for sure.

[Nostalgiabuff]

ironically, Disney also has built in continual sales for the toys at the theme parks. they make a killing selling the action figures at the Star tours ride and once the new Star Wars land opens at DW they will sell even more, so they can continually have product produced to sell there, even is sales dry up in the stores, which is not likely to happen any time soon with all the new movies in the pike

[FETT1]

AHHHH and HASBUTT still has the license !!!!! oi!

[huedell]

I spend so much money on 6-inch Black Series figures---and, frankly, every penny feels worth it!

[MIB41]

What I find most interesting about these statistics is how much money Kenner made during it's eight year run vs. Hasbro's sixteen year run. And this is despite the prequels and much higher toy prices now. Kenner had much stronger sales thirty years ago.

Keep in mind, there was not a collector's market that companies catered to in the 70's and 80's, so pricing and production was built around the idea these were disposable toys that got played with. By the time the prequels came into being, the entire landscape of marketing to collectors had been created and structured for a huge pay day for Lucas. He recognized that and made a killing as a result. If there's any doubt that philosophy is still not in play, go check out your local TRU stores. They are now going back to entire isles devoted solely to the Star Wars brand. It's insane. Every scale of figure imaginable is on display and the overkill factor is so bad, I virtually turn in nausea over it (even though most of it is themed on the original trilogy which is my preference). Its also interesting to see all of the huge card displays with Darth Vader on them. Hmmmm. Is he really gone from the new series? I think not.

[Gorn Captain]

Imagine that Mego had taken the SW licence?
What would the Mego company be like today, considering the money they might have made...

[acrovader]

Seriously, who would ever think 27 TRILLION dollars came from 6 movies' box office revenue?

[acrovader]

So if the prequels weren't 'predicated' on pushing toys.. there wouldn't be any toys for any of characters/vehicles? If there were no toys for the prequels, there would be plenty of people demanding them.