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« on: April 8, 2005, 05:59 PM »
I want to type in an article from the March 14th Wall Street Journal, yet it looks like I'll have to finish it later. This article compares product for Batman, Fantastic Four, and Start Wars. Here's a little part:
"In contrast, hasbro's planned line of "Star Wars" toys is "tighter" than in years past, says Brian Goldner, president of Hasbro's U.S. toys group. Over the past three decades, consumer retail sale of "Star Wars" - related toys, video games, clothes, shoes and other goods have topped $9 billion, making "Star Wars" one of the most successful movie related merchandise franchises ever, says Howard Roffman, president of Lucasfilm Ltd.'s licensing arm.
Lucasfilm executives expect retail sales of $1.5 billion or more for all kinds of merchandise from the coming movie, compared with $2 billion for "Episode I - The Phantom Menace," released in 1999, and $1.2 billion in retail sales three years later for "Episode II - Attack of the Clones." Believing they may have lost potential sales as a result of too little "Attack of the Clones" merchandise, they plan to ship more goods this time around, says Mr. Roffman.
The new "Star Wars" line is segmented for specific consumer groups, including collectors, young children, and tweens and teens. Action figures for the youngest fans feature bigger hands and feet, which make them easier to handle and play with. But many of the new products are aimed at so-called tweens, defined as kids from about eight to 12 years old, and even at young teens - age groups that seem to have left action-figure play far behind."
More of this later.
Interesting about the expectations.