The seventh installment to the “Star Wars” franchise officially titled “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is expected to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest blockbuster of 2015 when it is officially released to theaters on December 18.
In addition to dumping expected revenues to Disney’s coffers before the end of the year and possibly until early 2016, the movie is also projected to ring up big time the cash registers of toy retailers all over the world.
As a matter of fact, even this early, toys and merchandise retailers in Australia are already crossing their fingers and salivating on the thought that they will surely catch the financial windfall once the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” craze starts catching on in the Land Down Under.
Australia has a respectable $850 million toy and game industry and the major and small players are expected to capitalize on the seventh “Star Wars” movie by releasing products starting in September until the movie hits the big screens or even after that, notes the Sydney Morning Herald.
They have all the right reasons to be very excited about the earning potentials of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” both the movie and the subsequent related merchandise. Less than a week after the latest official trailer of the movie was uploaded to YouTube following its formal release during the Star Wars Celebration fan convention held last week, it has already recorded 42 million views.
Busy on merchandising
Major worldwide retailers who have presence in Australia are quite busy these days in their respective manufacturing facilities as they prepare to roll out toys and other products related to “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” from toy action figures to play sets.
Disney stated that it will sell collectibles, die-cast action figures and vehicles, role-play merchandise, costumes, and much more at its own stores and website. Since there are no more Disney stores in Australia, it shall facilitate the release of the items through other retailers.
But Disney also wants strict control of merchandise related to the seventh “Star Wars” film. It refused to disclose however how much merchandise it expects to sell in Australia and how big the market really vis-à-vis the global toy merchandising market.
Meanwhile, every Australian retailer and distributor are keeping mum about their respective “Star Wars” toy products lest they give the competition undue advantage when their merchandise hits the market starting in September.
Village Co-Chairman and CEO Graham Burke said that “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” would be a gigantic box office explosion when it opens to 500 theaters all over Australia. He explained that films of “Star Wars” caliber usually gets the crowd marching, short of saying buying spill over merchandise too.
Retail sales in Australia made a dramatic upswing in December last year after several years of disappointment. With the entry of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and the subsequent merchandise items that come with it in time for the Holidays, retailers are obviously buoyed by optimism and expects to end the year even better than 2014.