Melinda Wittstock
The force will soon be with us – that mystical other-worldly power to convince otherwise sensible earthlings to trade billions of hard-earned dollars for hats, toys, T-shirts, games and myriad other paraphernalia linked to Star Wars.
By early May The Phantom Menace, the first episode in the much-anticipated Star Wars prequel trilogy, will be omnipresent. The images will be on Pepsi Cola cans and Frito Lay crisp bags, in Pizza Huts, in toy shops and computer outlets, in bookstores, even on sheets, towels and blankets. Oh, and you can watch it all pass before your eyes in the movie theatre, too.
In the United States, tens of millions of dollars will already have been made by all those with a piece of Hollywood’s most lucrative licence, even before cinema doors open on May 19 for the latest George Lucas epic.
All manner of collectables bearing the images of Phantom Menace characters, even microchip-driven action figures able to speak and interact to recreate scenes from the new movie, will be in American shops by May 3. And retailers are expecting huge sales volumes.
“It will be a very expensive year,” promises the editor of Sir Steve’s Guide, a popular Internet website devoted to Star Wars memorabilia collectors. “But it will also be an exciting one.”
The film, starring Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Samuel L Jackson and Natalie Portman and distributed by Rupert Murdoch’s Twentieth Century Fox, doesn’t premiere in London until July 16. Here the marketing hype has yet to begin but the excitement is palpable.
Internet traffic is jammed on some 300 websites as aficionados trade gossip about plot lines, light-sabre technology, action sequences, even computerised special-effects techniques. There is already a brisk trade for Lego X-Wing fighter kits, Star Wars Monopoly computer games and embroidered T- shirts. They can all be found on , the official Lucasfilm Internet store.
Even last November’s release of a teaser trail saw millions of grown men queuing up for the box office loser Meet Joe Black purely to witness a two-minute glimpse of a young Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader. In New York City, there were reports of whoops and cheers at the mere sight of the Lucasfilm logo; in Los Angeles, audiences for The Siege jumped 1 147% the day the trailer was shown.
In the past 22 years, since the first Star Wars in 1977, merchandise built around Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, R2-D2, Princess Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi has grossed $4,5-billion – a sum four times the box office take from the first three movies.
Although there’s never a guarantee when it comes to predicting what toys and games children will demand from their parents, retailers and licensees of the new Star Wars merchandise are betting princely sums on that past performance.
The American toy giant Hasbro and its newly acquired sister company Galoob Toys beat competition for the exclusive US licensing rights from rival From PAGE29
Mattel by paying director George Lucas’s production company Lucasfilm some $610- million. Industry insiders expect Hasbro will earn $5-billion-worth of sales from The Phantom Menace and the other two prequels, due for release in 2001 and 2003.
Much of the new merchandise remains a fiercely guarded trade secret, though the Internet is rife with leaks and speculation.
Lucas, with personal licensing profits of more than $1-billion from his first three Star Wars films, has sworn his staff to secrecy, and forced all licensees – and every would-be buyer who saw some of the goods during last month’s American International Trade Fair in New York – to sign strict confidentiality agreements. The media haven’t got a look-in.
Nor have retailers – and if they try to sell the new merchandise before the official May 3 starting gun, Lucas has warned they will be permanently banned from selling any Star Wars products.
As for Lucasfilms’s licensing plans in Britain, there is a strict “no comment”. The film company will not even reveal who its United Kingdom partners are, nor will the US licensees comment on whether they also have the rights in Britain.
It is a strategy reminiscent of Sony’s for the tie-in merchandise to Godzilla, the last big-budget behemoth. But there is one big difference: no one expects The Phantom Menace to flop.
Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg has given it a rave, if somewhat coy, review: “Oh my God! Your jaw will hang open for a week.” In box office terms the film is expected to trump even Titanic.
“The hype is there because of the fans, not because of Lucasfilm paying stupid amounts of money to advertise like the Godzilla thing,” says Lou “T-Bone” Tambone, a long-time Star Wars collector. The biggest challenge for Hasbro and Lego, the other Star Wars toymaker, will be to meet the fans’ high expectations, says Leonard Lee, publisher and chief editor of Action Figure News & Toy Review.
Hasbro’s action figures are powered by a new force, COMMTech (communication output memory module technology), which allows them to interact with one another as they do in the movie.
“They’re awesome,” says Holly Ingram of Hasbro. “It’ll change the way kids play with action figures.”
It might also change a few appetites, if the Tri Con Restaurant Group, which owns Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken chains in the US, has bet right. It has paid Lucasfilm a record $2-billion for the fast food marketing rights. It plans to entice more customers through its doors by offering collectable toys and transforming some franchises into the fictional planets of Naboo and Tattooine.
Jack Toolan, president of the fashion division of West Point Stevens which secured exclusive US rights to make Star Wars bed and bath linens, also believes the franchise is a licence to print money.
The Phantom Menace will be launched in South Africa on June 25