Star Wars, NOT Spidey, #1 for 2002

[JonathanLB]

#1 best selling toyline of the year, more than doubling sales of Spider-Man.

As I have said before, Star Wars remains the most popular movie series in existence if you want to see what kids are really interested in, look no further than the toy sales figures. It's that obvious.

$8 billion in toy sales now, that plus the box office grosses and other merchandise, I'd say SW is up to somewhere around $11 to $12 billion.

[JMK]

Toy sales mean as much as nothing.
It's the same as the repeat viewing phenomenon with Star Wars. Star Wars has FAR more adult collectors who literally spend thousands. There's a huge skew there. Toy sales are merely grasping at straws to try and prove what's bigger. Spider Man is more popular this year. AotC has been dethroned. It's THAT simple.

[Jedi Master Carr]

I think its more than just collectors to get those kind of numbers. actually #2 is Power Rangers (it had been #1 for years) and I think Pokemon or Harry Potter are next, I am thinking Spiderman barely made the top 5. That is more though because there figures cost too much, they were twice the price of SW and Power Rangers and they were junky looking too, and that is why I thought they sold poorly compared to other toys.

[Jedieb]

Toys, toys, toys...
Can anyone guess what the most successful toyline has been over the last 10 years? If you said SW you'd be close, but off the mark. It's Power Rangers. That's right, the crapfest that is Power Rangers has sold more toys over the last 10 years than just about any other toy line. Why? Kids love it and they buy it up in droves, year after year. SW toys have been HUGELY successful since Hasbro restarted the line back in 1995 with POTF2. During movie years SW toys pummel anything else that's solely movie related. This year the toys have grabbed the number one spot again by a wide margin. But in non movie years the line is basically collector driven. The collector's market primarily being made up of adults. By next spring Hasbro will scale back the current Saga line and you'll get fewer figures targeted towards collectors. They learned their lesson well after the TPM fiasco.

I've spoken with Hasbro reps myself about the over production issues involved with TPM. Hasbro had to take BACK millions of dollars worth of unsold product from major retailers like Toys R Us and WalMart because of sales that fell way short of expectations. Bottom line, people expected prequels toys to sell bigger than anything they'd ever seen and they didn't, end of story. That point isn't even debateable. It's a given in the collector community and Hasbro has admitted it overproduced TPM toys on several occasions. Hell, I got confirmation myself at SWCon2 of this. It's simply common knowledge. Even this year retailers are sending unsold product back. Just recently early May stock has been shipped back for credit towards fall and holiday toys. It's not nearly as bad as TPM's glut, but it's there. Still, SW was definitely #1 for the year in certain toy markets; action figures, etc, but come next year we'll see a marked slow down that'll continue until EP3 rolls around.


As for Spiderman toys, they have been successful for even longer than SW toys. You can go back to the vintage MEGO line to find strong sales of Spiderman toys. Throughtout the 70's, 80's, 90's, and 00's you could find successful Spiderman toy lines. And you know why? Because the character is driven primarily by a comic and not movies, you'll continue to see Spiderman toys on shelves long after Hasbro has dropped the SW line. The line will probably stop 2-3 years after EP3, if not sooner. What you may see then is another company pick up the line and then gear it even more towards adult collectors. McFalane would be an interesting choice in opinion. But the point is, Spiderman and his fellow superhero bretheren aren't going anywhere. SW toys fade away with the absence of movies. This a PROVEN fact; 1985-1995 were dead years and just recently non movie years have shown significantly slower sales than movie years.

People can twist facts and live in whatever world they choose to but the simple fact is that for the first time a SW film did not dominate the competition and take the #1 spot. That's it, it's over, ACCEPT IT!!! I can see why someone who's obssessed with money and being a frontrunner would have trouble reconciling AOTC's second place B.O. status. To them I guess Star Wars must ALWAYS be #1, because that means they're number #1, they're the greatest because SW is the greatest, blah, blah, blah.. The perquels are going to make less money than the OT's, that's OBVIOUS. All you have to do is adjust for inflation to see that. None of them will match ANH, and it looks like both AOTC and EP3 will fail to rank as high as any of the OT films ever did. Doesn't bug me one bit. But if you place so much stock in that kind of stuff I can see why somebody would have trouble accepting the reality the rest of us are living in.

[JonathanLB]

I think your point is actually very debatable given that I wrote a book on the subject and I did my research just as well as anyone could.

TPM toy sales were incredible. That's not even debatable, as you would say. In fact, TPM toy sales were so incredible that TPM became the #1 film in total merchandise sales, surpassing The Lion King. There had never been anything like those types of sales numbers for a single film.

"If you said SW you'd be close, but off the mark. It's Power Rangers."

No, actually Barbie has far outsold any other toyline, including Star Wars, and remains a perennial #1. Of course, if you're talking about just boys toys, then Barbie is out of that picture. Nonetheless, where did you get your stats? SW has been the #1 best-selling boys toy line from 1997 through present, and before that, I am not sure, so if you mean that because Power Rangers sold more between 1992 and 1997, then yeah, PR is ahead of SW for the last 10 years.

JMK, AOTC is Star Wars, and Star Wars is more popular than Spider-Man. That is a logical conclusion. If A, then B. If B, then C. Conclusion: If A, then C. It's THAT simple.

"Star Wars has FAR more adult collectors who literally spend thousands."

So certain are you? Always with you it cannot be done...

I guarantee there are plenty of nerdy adult Spider-Man toy collectors. I met many of them when I was a Marvel fan, hehe.

[Sene Unty]

Why can't Barbie be classified as a "Boy's toy" ?

[JMK]

Jon, you're WAY oversimplifying. Yes, AotC is a part of Star Wars, and I agree that on the whole, SW is more successful than Spider Man. But AotC is not more popular than Spider Man, and adding up all assets that are Star Wars related to beat one movie makes no sense. By your logic, Titanic is not the most box office champ. You're essentially saying that it's ok to add up all of the grosses for the SW movies and add them up to top any one single movie. That is nothing more than skewing facts and grasping at straws.

[Hart]

I don't really like the AOTC figs. Really, the way they're posed for one particular thing pisses me off.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Multi purpose toys are better. :D Like, do we really need three Jango Fetts, one with the head that comes off, one with rockets and the other with..whatever..?

Or the multiple Anakins.. :lol

BTW, millions of Spiderman's out tonight. Two Jango/Boba fetts, and one minature Jedi Knight. So cute. :)

[JMK]

BTW, millions of Spiderman's out tonight. Two Jango/Boba fetts, and one minature Jedi Knight. So cute.

My point exactly. :)

[Jackson DeWitt]

There was one spiderman at my party, and one padme

[Bette Davis]

There can be only one! UNless we happen to be talking about Charley and my accounts on this board. ^_^;

[Sene Unty]

I saw a couple of Spideys out last night. They were all like 5 so it was very cute!:D

[Jedieb]

My son was Superman and my daughter was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Ten years from now, you'll still see plenty of Superhero characters on Halloween. But without movies to back them up, how many SW characters do you think you'll see?

BTW, in regards to Spiderman toys, you'd have to throw in the other toy lines that feature Spiderman toys. Not only did the movie have it's own line, but there's at least 3 other lines that I can think of that feature Spiderman toys and have no connection to the movie.

[Sene Unty]

Yeah, you have not only the movies to go on, but the Comic too. SW only has the movies....though some EU figures would be sweet. I would be first in line for a Borsk Fe'Leya (I Spelled that wrong) figure. :D

[JMK]

There are a few select EU figs out there. Figures from Shadows of the Empire were made, and I think a Mara Jade figure was made too.

[Sene Unty]

I always liked Mara Jade....Probably a cool figure.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I think she has a nice figure...oh wait. Yeah there were quite a few Supermans as well last night.

[JMK]

:lol

[Sene Unty]

Whats so funny???? Supermen or that its a nice figure?

[flagg]

I don't have to accept Spidey being more popular in my country, cause it wasn't. AOTC beat his -Censored--Censored--Censored- at the box office :D

Oh, and I heard TPM's merchandise alone generated about a billion dollars. So much for disappointing sales . . . :rolleyes

[Jedieb]

If you're expecting twice that then you could say it was dissapointing. Just ask all the retailers who were stuck with tons of unsold product. The stuff was over produced and sold below expectations. That's why the number of licensed items for AOTC was smaller than TPM.

[JMK]

I have to roll my eyes at people who only look at one side of the story. At first glance, 1 billion is a jaw-dropping amount. How could any one movie pull off that kind of loot with merchandising?
But if you look at what it was expected to sell and how much crap was left on the shelves, then sure, it had disappointing sales.

[BUFFJEDI]

Originally posted by JMK
I have to roll my eyes at people who only look at one side of the story. At first glance, 1 billion is a jaw-dropping amount. How could any one movie pull off that kind of loot with merchandising?
But if you look at what it was expected to sell and how much crap was left on the shelves, then sure, it had disappointing sales. yeah that's true BUT we sure do get to buy alot of stuff cheap:cool

[BUFFJEDI]

Originally posted by JMK
Toy sales mean as much as nothing.
It's the same as the repeat viewing phenomenon with Star Wars. Star Wars has FAR more adult collectors who literally spend thousands. There's a huge skew there. Toy sales are merely grasping at straws to try and prove what's bigger. Spider Man is more popular this year. AotC has been dethroned. It's THAT simple. I would not say toy sales mean nothing. I mean it takes ALOT of people to buy that much stuff (or maybe 3 jedieb(s) ) but nontheless it show what a penom that starwars still is. It's like viewings. Alot of people will say well AOTC only made as much as it did due to repeat fanboy's, maybe true BUT i assure you spider-man had as many as AOTC's. Heck there were even web sites begging people to repeat spider-man so it could beat TPM.
See Spiderman made alot/most by repeat (i bet) it was not like Titanic that EVERYONE (but me) and there brother went out to see.Although Titanic did have lots of reapeats.(LOTS)

But than agian it's not a crime to have bad taste, wish it was :D




btw:love titanic now

[Marcus Telcontar]

But AotC is not more popular than Spider Man

Not in Australia. Tho... LOTR and Harry Potter beat the whatizt out of both of them

[BUFFJEDI]

Originally posted by Marcus Q'Dunn
Not in Australia. Tho... LOTR and Harry Potter beat the whatizt out of both of them See bad taste is not a crime;) :lol

[Jedieb]

It's rather amazing to look at the international results for FOTR, HP, Spidey, and AOTC. As of today AOTC came out #1 in only ONE country, and that was by a very small margin. It just didn't stack up to those other films internationally or even domestically. If ANYONE would have predicted those results before May they would have been laughed off this board.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/data/vs.htm

[flagg]

Originally posted by Jedieb
It's rather amazing to look at the international results for FOTR, HP, Spidey, and AOTC. As of today AOTC came out #1 in only ONE country, and that was by a very small margin. It just didn't stack up to those other films internationally or even domestically. If ANYONE would have predicted those results before May they would have been laughed off this board.

Yeah, that is funny. Hungary must have some serious Star Wars fans! :lol

But it's not really a fair comparison since AOTC is the only one of those films that's a sequel. Spider-Man had 40 years worth of fans waiting to see the first major movie based on the character, FOTR had 50 years worth of Tolkien fans expecting that film. Harry Potter only had 3 years of expectation since the first book came out, but the kid audience for that film was probably larger than Star Wars and LOTR put together.
AOTC was just another sequel, except to us diehard fans, of course :)

[Jedieb]

AOTC was just another sequel, except to us diehard fans, of course
true, true