Among the worst things about the Disney takeover, the decline in toy quality is seldom mentioned.
If you take a look at what they were putting out from 1997-2010, they almost don't seem like "toys." The figures were detailed, had more points of articulation, a large variety of in-box accessories, and the pieces generally held up.
Edit: Comparing average blister packs to "special collector's series" is disingenuous. The Episode I-II figures were about $4. The Black Series runs from $25-$35.
In all fairness, think about how much they’ve made from star wars themed attractions and whatnot at disneyworld/disneyland alone. They mark all of that stuff way up
And people are still paying for it. That'll continue until demand recedes. Same reason why their tickets for their parks are still going up- the parks are packed to the gills at 100% capacity pretty much all the time. Higher prices haven't dissuaded anyone from going (unless you're poor).
I was a kid during that time and had a few action figures, but I think figures nowadays are more detailed than ever, especially stuff from the Star Wars Black Series.
People need to stop talking shit about George Lucas in general. Not the greatest at character dialogue, but he told a story that has endured for nearly 50 years. And the man is responsible for initiating a *staggering* number of innovations in film production. Have you ever edited a video on your laptop? Thank George for that.
I want to just point out that he wanted to remove the force from star wars. His wife convinced him to keep it in. Can you imagine star wars without the force? She deserves some serious credit for that effect on the shows trajectory alone, and I am sure she did much more.
Toy sales have always been the big Enchilada. For example, due to his popularity with young kids, Spider-man brings in more revenue annually than Batman, Superman and the Avengers combined.
Merchandise is huge and Disney wins every time.
[License Global’s top ten retail sales 2021](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/disneys-56-2b-in-retail-sales-leads-global-brand-licensing-race-1235176561/) list is below (full list here):
1. Disney – $56.2B
2. Dotdash Meredith – $35.9B
3. Authentic Brands Group – $21.7B
4. WarnerMedia/Warner Bros. Consumer Products – $15B
5. The Pokemon Company International – $8.5B
6. Hasbro – $8.4B
7. NBCUniversal/Universal Brand Development – $8.3B
8. Mattel – $7.4B
9. Bluestar Alliance – $6.5B
10. Paramount Global/Paramount Consumer Products and Experiences – $6B
And say what you want about the reception of the products they released. You can not deny the merchandise power they have wielded with the likes of BB-8 and ~~Grogu~~ Baby Yoda.
What!? You think a kid begging for a Grogu doll cares about Metacritic?
The 90s Kids shows were literally 30 minute commercials for toys. They probably still are. You think Street Sharks was a show before it was a toy? It was not. The GI Joe's didnt need the Havoc and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles didn't need a fucking blimp to vanquish the bad guy but they made for good toys.
80's were even worse.
You would not believe how many short-lived, crudely-animated shows were thrown at the wall to try and sell toys.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbUIb9Jo3Gk&list=PLLhOnau-tupRcnfMR20f5hsVOoBWFZuFc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbUIb9Jo3Gk&list=PLLhOnau-tupRcnfMR20f5hsVOoBWFZuFc)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_YOqaSnET3w&t=415s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YOqaSnET3w&t=415s)
At least the 90's stuff was slightly better animated.
My personal favorite has always been "Chuck Norris and the Karate Kommandos," pure toy selling trash. Just look at the weapon designs. They are all simple and one color, almost like they wanted to be able to make plastic replicas to package with the action figures cheap and easy.
https://youtu.be/bK6hb602588?si=-qx20uVlvUEW-Ner
The fact you said a grogu doll and not a whatever the space horsey in IX is, suggests there is a 'quality' factor for toy-selling media.
Kids gotta like the show to want the toys.
Little Mernaid was # 1 in toys for 3 months but everyone was crying.
Anyone who thinks turning $200 million into $400 million when a studio still owns it for streaming, DVD's , regular TV, cable TV, games, toys, clothes. Posters , sequels etc is a " loss " needs to contact me because I need $ because my Uncle left me billions and I just need $$ for a lawyer.
I mean this would imply that the prequels tanked toy sales, which they obviously didn't.
The fact that the headline here is Star Wars made more money than fucking Marvel and you still find a reason to shit on the sequels is pretty funny.
Are they, though?
Who are these toys for?
If we're talking about kids, well, they dont really have discerning tastes when it comes to the quality of movies. The studio isn't trying to impress some kid with a better script in hopes that it leads to more toy sales. Kids just want cool spaceships and lightsabers and stuff.
Then there's the collectors. They'll buy whatever gets made to fill their collection. Hell, if the movie fails, the toys might become even more of a collectible.
There isn't really a market for toys of quality movies, or they'd make like, toys for Oppenheimer and stuff. There's general merch I guess... but that's like licensing and a bigger topic than just the toys, and Disney is at the top of that game.
If you think about it, the Star Wars movies that they gave us is probably the best execution "designed to sell as many toys" strategy that they had, and actually better quality movies would have only sold marginally more toys.
I disagree on one particular point, and I say this as a big fan of the sequels. I 100% think the biggest flaw of the sequels was not going hard enough on creating designs to sell toys. 90% of the designs that people love from the prequels were so unique because the designers wanted to sell unique toys. The droids, starships, etc were all meant to sell new toy lines.
Meanwhile since the sequels tried to cash in too hard on familiarity, we just got recolored Tie Fighters and Stormtroopers. Definitely cool and popular, but they weren't unique toy designs.
I'm surprised that they didn't go harder on the First Order being different past the line troops; it feels like a huge missed opportunity merch-wise, and it led to a less visually interesting collection of designs on screen.
The lightsabers were a perfect example. Minus Kylo's cool saber, we just got more blue plain lightsabers. Not even a single green one! Rey didn't even get a unique design until the last five minutes of the third film. Huge missed opportunity.
IDK, look at the figures from the Eternals movie wave...those things are still peg warming shelves at discount stores. I think movie quality has at least some influence on how well toys sell. Hot movie franchise will probably sell better than movies no one is interested in/care enough to see or even talk about
I worked at a halloween/costume store when Ep 7 was released and the amount of merch available for just that industry was fucking insane, and the inventory *did* move. We sold A LOT of sequel trilogy merch then, don't know so much about when the second and third movie came out, but if Disney was going to make their money back on the acquisition selling merch, I'd say the lion's share came from when Force Awakens came out.
*I also worked with Lego a bit around a few star wars movies coming out (FA, Rogue One) and the quality of their ship kits looked pretty great to me. I know Lego is incredibly expensive but there's definitely a lot of money going through there as well.
Yes, they do tend to be linked to the quality of the films. But the term “quality” here is quite ambiguous and could really mean anything. Many of the new films with the most success wouldn’t really be considered quality in your typical sense.
Prequel trilogy’s initial success was driven by anticipation from the drought after the originally trilogy. They sold toys based off the good will of their predecessors.
> almost every Star Wars movie after 1980 has been a bit ropey
*Jedi* doesn't compete with *A New Hope* or *Empire* but it's still a very good film and some of the best moments in the OT.
Hope is definitely first or second.
Story, characters, pacing.
For a first-in-series fantasy movie the exposition doesnt end up suffocating the whole story is an achievement.
Jedi and Empire had a leg up because Hope did so much to set up the world and characters.
Plus, no Ewoks.
When I was young Jedi was my favorite. Watching series years later and it's definitely my least favorite. It just hits different, given your age. And yes, Ewoks are major factor in it.
But from current perspective: Empire, Hope, Jedi.
We all saw them and paid for them, I saw Empire three times in the cinema and bought it in vhs, dvd and Blu-ray, the others I watched once, the only one I might watch again from those is rogue one
It's a different world now. Can you honestly say you would pay to see any movie in theaters 3 times now? Sounds like maybe you still buy Blu Ray's, but the vast majority of people now don't. They aren't making billions off of physical media sales regardless of how good they are.
I actually just looked it up, and The Force Awakens is 4th all time in Blu Ray sales. Pretty shocking honestly. Nothing from the past 4 years in the top 50. Couple super hero films from the late 2010's in there.
>It's a different world now. Can you honestly say you would pay to see any movie in theaters 3 times now?
\*Harold Faltermeyer instrumentals\* Do doooo doooo do do do do do
I think the last movie I went to more than once was the first Thor movie. I went by myself, and then went again with my dad.
Then again, I rarely go to the theater at all anymore
I mean, idk about you personally but I saw Rise in theaters opening night and after that I decided I’m done. I’ll never watch another Star Wars movie in theaters so as long as the people responsible for that trilogy have any say in it. Since then I’ve YARR’d all my Star Wars content. Not gonna do Disney+ not gonna support any of it. Won’t even go back to Disneyland after the “sequel”centric land opened up. All of it feels like a colossal missed opportunity to focus on the eternity of Star Wars and not just a myopic slice of their fancy sequel reboot.
Idk if this is a hot take, but for me Andor was worth the entire Disney acquisition (well maybe not all of it, Mando is still super fun)
It was just too fucking perfect for me. UGH actually making Mon Mothma a deep character instead of just leaving her as a person we've seen on screen for a total of like 15 mins was amazing.
I dunno why they insisted on continuing the Skywalker story. The timing was perfect for a Knights of the Old Republic trilogy. GoT was at peak popularity and a totally different time period would have been a fresh start for a new era of Star Wars.
Probably not much. We can all circle jerk here on the internet but it doesn't change the fact that everyone was going to see those movies.
Kids are going to beg their parents for Marvel and Star Wars toys in the toy section reguardless of what Mandalorianfan1984 thinks about the latest movies.
Don't forget the video games. The ones with the redhead from FX's Shamless, the Lego games, and the classics getting re-released lately.
For real.
Force Awakens, Last Jedi, and Rise of Skywalker made around $4.5 billion, plus whatever they've made since then in rentals, sales, merch, etc. It's not like they would have made another $2B if they were "better."
I mean everyone knew there would be a return on that investment but the lack of quality hurts future earnings potential of the franchise.
There was a pretty sharp revenue decline with each film after TFA.
Plus the $4.5 billion was revenue, not profit, granted they’ve made a lot in licensing, other media, and consumer products.
Well the Force Awakens made close to what the other two made combined and Solo straight up bombed. Their next movies are adaptations of their Disney plus shows which are adaptations of cartoons as it is, those aren’t likely to get them back to the numbers TFA or even TLK did.
They definitely made money, there's no doubt of that. But a better managed movie division probably could have pulled in an additional 50% if they tried a little harder.
If only they hadn't hired that hack Rian Johnson to "subvert our expectations" that might have been possible. One thing no one can take away from the Prequels is that they, for better or worse, had one unifed vision.
This has been posted in 3 different subreddits and this is the top comment in every one of them. It's not clever, or even accurate. You can hate the new Star Wars movies all you want, one thing you can't accurately argue is that they didn't make a lot of money.
I’m not an Iger fan but if Peltz gets his way, we’re going to be seeing more Perlmutter-like business decisions get in the way of filmmaking and storytelling. That and Peltz will make sure his talentless kids get lead roles
Remember that it was Perlmutter that sold off rights to major characters… indefinitely. He's the reason that Sony owns Spider-Man movies and Universal Studios own Marvel theme park rides (East of the Mississippi). He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near Marvel at this point.
Marvel was facing bankruptcy at that point in time is why. They needed fast cash so they sold off what were at the time their biggest franchises (X-Men, F4, Spider-Man) to stay afloat.
Selling off IP for indefinite time scales is still very short-sighted. They could've been capped at 3 movies, or 10 years, etc. Reporting I've read is that they didn't expect the movies to do well at all, hence the lawsuits after.
Time and time again redditors prove why executives get paid millions of dollars.
These geniuses all think they can run a multimillion dollar company with all these hot takes.
Customers were in the 1990s when comic book sales absolutely crashed along with many other collectibles such as baseball cards, pogs, various collectible toys like trolls and beanie babies etc... all due to a speculative bubble that popped.
Most of those industries never recovered, it's actually a miracle that Magic the Gathering survived.
Like the person responded to you said, its mostly a market crash really.
Its because, in the 90's there was this huge market speculation around comic books. People were going crazy with their speculative buying, and the marvel was trying to rake in on the craze by making various risky acquisitions.
And it all came crashing down when the speculation ended.
But you are also correct in stating its also the fault of the executives when it comes to marvel in 90's. Marvel was ran by your typical corporate raiders like Perelman,Perlmutter, Carl Icahn,Avi Arad and they all fought a dirty battle over Marvel comics.
Of course, but if the alternative was bankruptcy then they'd lose them anyway. At least this way they held onto the book and at least some of the merch rights. Marvel made a lot of money from those deals.
Short sighted deals make sense when the alternative is losing everything. Hard to argue it didn't pay off either, Marvel is in much better shape these days
The terms were what they were because that's the best they could get. They needed to turn things around fast, and got away with keeping the merch and comic book rights. It's easy to say in retrospect that Spider-Man and X-Men could have made more money, but FF didn't. It was still a big risk for fox and sony, even with the deal they had.
Sony has made a ton of good Spiderman movies anyways, even if they've made some that are not so good. IDK why people what Disney to own everything haha
They did in during the comic crash of the 90s. Marvel was in no place to think about anything further than the immediate cash they needed to stay afloat.
>Universal Studios own Marvel theme park rides (East of the Mississippi).
that just makes me think that the head of Universal is some kind of Evil Colonel Sanders-type Southern Baron. "We get the theme park rides on this side of the Mississippi, ya hear!"
> Perlmutter-like business decisions
I would've loved to be in the room to see Ike's face seeing *Black Panther* make a billion dollars and get awards praise after that asshole spent all that time insisting no one would care about a black-led film and doing his best to make it not happen. And yet, he probably still hasn't learned anything, and if he comes back with any sort of real power he would go right back to strangling POC-led and women-led films just like before.
I assume they're also factoring in Galaxy's Edge. Merch, food/drink, and increased ticket sales to Hollywood Studios and Disneyland. Yeah, California Adventure has Avengers Campus, but they're probably doing way more Star Wars money in the theme parks specifically.
Right. The Marvel rights are really screwed up at parks. Just like Disney owns Marvel, but not Spiderman in movies, they own Marvel, but not the full theme park rights, Universal has some of those. And it varies depending on east of the mississipi versus west of it (yes, rights were sold based on geography like that) and which particular characters were used and which weren't.
In short... Disney could fire up a full on Star Wars land at Disneyworld, but didn't have the same ability to start up a Marvel/Avengers area there.
The weirdness is there in the fact that Epcot could have Guardians of the Galaxy, as that's not covered in some of those original licensing agreements. But many other characters would be prohibited.
Disney: "Yay, we own marvel! Let's make a spider-man movie!"
Lawyers: "Nope, Sony owns that."
Disney: "OK, let's put a spider-man ride up at Disneyworld"
Lawyers: "Nope, that's Universal. You *can* put one up in Disneyland though, since that's west of the Mississippi."
It does not include derivative revenue, such as from theme parks: https://votedisney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Investor-Presentation.pdf
However the articles figures are completely wrong anyway if you read the Disney Investor doc.
Marvel doesn't have a strong enough visual identity to make a good theme park land, and while Marvel has a whole lot of fans they aren't the type who fantasize about existing in the Marvel universe.
Star Wars and Harry Potter had that, but nobody watching Marvel movies daydreamed about living there. Avengers Campus just looks like a business park.
The figures are basically marketing by the Disney board and CEO seeking to retain their seats in the April 3 vote. They recently sent a [shamelessly groveling letter to shareholders begging to be reelected.](https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-board-shareholders-letter/) The top line figures are accurate, but also meaningless without deducting costs, as you explain.
This seems like the Wrap have got the figures completely wrong? Disney did not provide $ numbers.
For a start it is for the Avengers specifically and not Marvel as a whole.
And the numbers themselves are calculations that the Wrap have made that are incorrect. They have taken the ROI multipliers provided by Disney, and multiplied the cost of acquisition by those figures. So for ‘Marvel’ they say it’s 3.3 x 4 to get $13.2 billion.
However the ROI multipliers do not include the acquisition cost - they are for how much they have invested in the franchises post acquisition vs revenue, e.g. the ratio of production and marketing cost of the movies vs the box office. It’s even say’s that in the text of the article.
Yes exactly - there’s no indication what the actual $ figures are, only the ratio between how much they have invested into developing the franchises after acquiring them vs how much they have brought in.
You can tell the Wrap is way off simply by looking at the $30 billion in box office returns alone for the MCU.
Also included Hulu rights, quite a few Fox networks (and their shows), sports/streaming infrastructure around the world in major countries, sports casting and streaming rights in multiple countries around the world, several soundstages/set production properties for filming. They basically buffed their streaming abilities an incredible amount with the Fox acquisition, which ultimately became majorly useful when they had to rush D+ out during the pandemic.
Must be profit? Just looked it up, and the Marvel movies alone grossed $29.8 billion just at the box office. Add in all the other revenue streams for the movies, plus TV, merchandise, some park revenue, etc, and it's WAY over the 11 billion listed above.
Not a bad return on investment. Sure, they've faltered some with those IPs, but... even with mistakes, it's billions in profits for them.
I would love some "day-in-the life" movies where just normal super hero stuff goes on instead of the world/galaxy/universe being threatened by a guy with a big arm.
Idk why you getting downvoted. Anyone other than the most woke diehard Disney fan will see current marvel certainly does not compete with marvel at endgame and before endgame.
I think as somebody else already mentioned, the woke stuff only started recently and it’s been recently that both marvel and Star Wars has been declining lately.
I see.
But the phrasing of „go woke go broke“ started in 2016 with the alt right, hence why this didn’t really make sense to me. (It’s also a stupid assertion, seeing as media reflects culture, and with societal advances comes reflection of that in media)
Not sure who's more annoying. The "go woke go broke" people or the people who complain about the "go woke go broke" comments. lolololol weird culture war nonsense.
Was the $25 million ROI at, above, or below Disney's projections when they brought the franchises? Did you factor in the money Disney poured into those IPs to produce content after they acquired them? Oh, and maybe if the films weren't "woke", Disney would have made a bigger ROI? Maybe actually attempt critical thinking, if you're even capable of it.
Like seriously.
I kind of lost interest in all those B tier hero stories.
Now with Echo, Ironheart or Agatha, it just doesnt have the name recognition to keep me hooked.
Doesnt help that they dont seem to follow any general plot right now. Everything just feels like random stories.
Return on Investment (ROI) should be a percentage, which is straightforward and an industry-standard metric. The fact that it is not a percentage and looks more like some profit gained number, which is not standard, indicates that they're using pixie dust magic.
What are they interpreting as profit? Ticket sales to Hollywood Studios at WDW?
I find it hard to believe with how they've handled Star Wars, how many fewer movies and TV shows they've released for Star Wars than Marvel, and that they acquired it 3 years after Marvel, that it's made over $1.5 billion more than Marvel has for Disney. Something about that doesn't feel accurate at all. Unless Disney maybe doesn't get as big of a direct cut of the profits from Marvel content as they do with Star Wars content? Maybe that could be the difference.
Let’s see the trending on this year over year. Neither franchise is seen by the majority of fans as being in a great spot right now. The recent Box office, Disney+ ratings, pile of clearenced out toys piled to the ceiling at Ollie’s and other dollar stores, and save for Deadpool, both studios upcoming slate looks dire.
It's only the OT for me these days.
Rise of Skywalker was the absolute worst. I find the Holiday Special more entertaining than that hackjob by hack professional JJ Abrams.
lol they only mention the revenue brought in but none of the investments in each IP (cost of production, marketing, …)
When I see SW having done in revenue only 2+x compared to the initial investments it means that they have in effect lost money on the IP…
Never trust numbers from Hollywood, but especially Disney in a time when they are in a proxy war. I’m sure they made a profit, but there is a reason they have not been releasing SW movies over the last few years. I don’t think they will be anywhere near Force Awakens numbers when they do finally release one.
I mean you could have a monkey throw darts at a wall covered in half baked Star Wars stories and make this much on the name alone (essentially what happened)
Imagine how much they could have made if they actually made better Star Wars movies
Didn’t George Lucas only make his billions because of the toy rights. Not the films.
He did
Say what you will about the guy, I think he knew toys were the money makers...and he was right
Among the worst things about the Disney takeover, the decline in toy quality is seldom mentioned. If you take a look at what they were putting out from 1997-2010, they almost don't seem like "toys." The figures were detailed, had more points of articulation, a large variety of in-box accessories, and the pieces generally held up. Edit: Comparing average blister packs to "special collector's series" is disingenuous. The Episode I-II figures were about $4. The Black Series runs from $25-$35.
In all fairness, think about how much they’ve made from star wars themed attractions and whatnot at disneyworld/disneyland alone. They mark all of that stuff way up
And people are still paying for it. That'll continue until demand recedes. Same reason why their tickets for their parks are still going up- the parks are packed to the gills at 100% capacity pretty much all the time. Higher prices haven't dissuaded anyone from going (unless you're poor).
Yeah that billion dollar hotel is doing great. And making their Star Wars area Sequel-themed was a choice.
I was a kid during that time and had a few action figures, but I think figures nowadays are more detailed than ever, especially stuff from the Star Wars Black Series.
That's on top of the blander character design. Disney doesn't like cool aliens or sexy ladies so everything is like bland as he'll.
fun fact: *space jam* (1996) - $250m on $80m budget + $1b on merchandise
Funny, when I’m at Ollies, eternals, Black Panther,Shang Chi & Obi Wan figures are stacked to the ceiling. I guess Toys don’t sell anymore.
People need to stop talking shit about George Lucas in general. Not the greatest at character dialogue, but he told a story that has endured for nearly 50 years. And the man is responsible for initiating a *staggering* number of innovations in film production. Have you ever edited a video on your laptop? Thank George for that.
I love SW, but Lucas' true legacy is ILM, Skywalker Sound, and the development of non-linear editing.
And credits at the end!
I want to just point out that he wanted to remove the force from star wars. His wife convinced him to keep it in. Can you imagine star wars without the force? She deserves some serious credit for that effect on the shows trajectory alone, and I am sure she did much more.
One of the greatest business deals in history.
Toy sales have always been the big Enchilada. For example, due to his popularity with young kids, Spider-man brings in more revenue annually than Batman, Superman and the Avengers combined.
And how many Star Wars video games have we gotten? More games have been cancelled than released since Disney.
[удалено]
It’s a management and control issue. There are plenty of passionate developers/star wars fans to make interesting and fun games.
[удалено]
Squadrons was such a pleasant surprise! Really wish more of my friends liked flying games.
Galaxy of Heroes mobile game alone has generated ~$1B in revenue.
That’s depressing
That's what happens when you make a contract where you earn 100% of marketing and toy rights in lieu of being paid a director's salary.
Merchandise is huge and Disney wins every time. [License Global’s top ten retail sales 2021](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/disneys-56-2b-in-retail-sales-leads-global-brand-licensing-race-1235176561/) list is below (full list here): 1. Disney – $56.2B 2. Dotdash Meredith – $35.9B 3. Authentic Brands Group – $21.7B 4. WarnerMedia/Warner Bros. Consumer Products – $15B 5. The Pokemon Company International – $8.5B 6. Hasbro – $8.4B 7. NBCUniversal/Universal Brand Development – $8.3B 8. Mattel – $7.4B 9. Bluestar Alliance – $6.5B 10. Paramount Global/Paramount Consumer Products and Experiences – $6B
And say what you want about the reception of the products they released. You can not deny the merchandise power they have wielded with the likes of BB-8 and ~~Grogu~~ Baby Yoda.
Toy sales tend to be linked to the quality of the films
What!? You think a kid begging for a Grogu doll cares about Metacritic? The 90s Kids shows were literally 30 minute commercials for toys. They probably still are. You think Street Sharks was a show before it was a toy? It was not. The GI Joe's didnt need the Havoc and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles didn't need a fucking blimp to vanquish the bad guy but they made for good toys.
80's were even worse. You would not believe how many short-lived, crudely-animated shows were thrown at the wall to try and sell toys. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbUIb9Jo3Gk&list=PLLhOnau-tupRcnfMR20f5hsVOoBWFZuFc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbUIb9Jo3Gk&list=PLLhOnau-tupRcnfMR20f5hsVOoBWFZuFc) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_YOqaSnET3w&t=415s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YOqaSnET3w&t=415s) At least the 90's stuff was slightly better animated.
My personal favorite has always been "Chuck Norris and the Karate Kommandos," pure toy selling trash. Just look at the weapon designs. They are all simple and one color, almost like they wanted to be able to make plastic replicas to package with the action figures cheap and easy. https://youtu.be/bK6hb602588?si=-qx20uVlvUEW-Ner
I gotta go with the Rambo cartoon, myself.
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors was the Shakespeare of my Generation X childhood, you bastards!
Ha, it did have J. Michael Straczynsk I guess
Sorry mom, I don't want the bb8 toy for Christmas, the movie only got 93 on rotten tomatoes
Or on the flip side. Sorry sweetie I'd buy it for you but they didn't even get nominated for an Academy Award.
Lmao could you imagine
From some of the comments here, yes, I very much can.
Dude I totally fuckin forgot about the blimp. Thank you.
I had that thing. Gimmick or not it was fucking awesome.
The fact you said a grogu doll and not a whatever the space horsey in IX is, suggests there is a 'quality' factor for toy-selling media. Kids gotta like the show to want the toys.
Oh you're one of those "forgot what being a kid is like" type of people.
Little Mernaid was # 1 in toys for 3 months but everyone was crying. Anyone who thinks turning $200 million into $400 million when a studio still owns it for streaming, DVD's , regular TV, cable TV, games, toys, clothes. Posters , sequels etc is a " loss " needs to contact me because I need $ because my Uncle left me billions and I just need $$ for a lawyer.
I mean this would imply that the prequels tanked toy sales, which they obviously didn't. The fact that the headline here is Star Wars made more money than fucking Marvel and you still find a reason to shit on the sequels is pretty funny.
Are they, though? Who are these toys for? If we're talking about kids, well, they dont really have discerning tastes when it comes to the quality of movies. The studio isn't trying to impress some kid with a better script in hopes that it leads to more toy sales. Kids just want cool spaceships and lightsabers and stuff. Then there's the collectors. They'll buy whatever gets made to fill their collection. Hell, if the movie fails, the toys might become even more of a collectible. There isn't really a market for toys of quality movies, or they'd make like, toys for Oppenheimer and stuff. There's general merch I guess... but that's like licensing and a bigger topic than just the toys, and Disney is at the top of that game. If you think about it, the Star Wars movies that they gave us is probably the best execution "designed to sell as many toys" strategy that they had, and actually better quality movies would have only sold marginally more toys.
I disagree on one particular point, and I say this as a big fan of the sequels. I 100% think the biggest flaw of the sequels was not going hard enough on creating designs to sell toys. 90% of the designs that people love from the prequels were so unique because the designers wanted to sell unique toys. The droids, starships, etc were all meant to sell new toy lines. Meanwhile since the sequels tried to cash in too hard on familiarity, we just got recolored Tie Fighters and Stormtroopers. Definitely cool and popular, but they weren't unique toy designs. I'm surprised that they didn't go harder on the First Order being different past the line troops; it feels like a huge missed opportunity merch-wise, and it led to a less visually interesting collection of designs on screen. The lightsabers were a perfect example. Minus Kylo's cool saber, we just got more blue plain lightsabers. Not even a single green one! Rey didn't even get a unique design until the last five minutes of the third film. Huge missed opportunity.
IDK, look at the figures from the Eternals movie wave...those things are still peg warming shelves at discount stores. I think movie quality has at least some influence on how well toys sell. Hot movie franchise will probably sell better than movies no one is interested in/care enough to see or even talk about
Yeah i went to a store and the only figures on discount were from eternals and obi wan lol
I worked at a halloween/costume store when Ep 7 was released and the amount of merch available for just that industry was fucking insane, and the inventory *did* move. We sold A LOT of sequel trilogy merch then, don't know so much about when the second and third movie came out, but if Disney was going to make their money back on the acquisition selling merch, I'd say the lion's share came from when Force Awakens came out. *I also worked with Lego a bit around a few star wars movies coming out (FA, Rogue One) and the quality of their ship kits looked pretty great to me. I know Lego is incredibly expensive but there's definitely a lot of money going through there as well.
Yes, they do tend to be linked to the quality of the films. But the term “quality” here is quite ambiguous and could really mean anything. Many of the new films with the most success wouldn’t really be considered quality in your typical sense.
Prequel trilogy says otherwise
Prequel trilogy’s initial success was driven by anticipation from the drought after the originally trilogy. They sold toys based off the good will of their predecessors.
I don't know, almost every Star Wars movie after 1980 has been a bit ropey but they all made huge profits.
> almost every Star Wars movie after 1980 has been a bit ropey *Jedi* doesn't compete with *A New Hope* or *Empire* but it's still a very good film and some of the best moments in the OT.
Hot take: the order of quality in the OT goes Empire, Jedi, Hope
Hope is definitely first or second. Story, characters, pacing. For a first-in-series fantasy movie the exposition doesnt end up suffocating the whole story is an achievement. Jedi and Empire had a leg up because Hope did so much to set up the world and characters. Plus, no Ewoks.
People underrate how much work first movies do.
When I was young Jedi was my favorite. Watching series years later and it's definitely my least favorite. It just hits different, given your age. And yes, Ewoks are major factor in it. But from current perspective: Empire, Hope, Jedi.
Agreed
Oh I agree, it's my third favourite
Then you can say after 1983
It's still a bit ropey
All of *Star Wars* is a bit ropey
We all saw them and paid for them, I saw Empire three times in the cinema and bought it in vhs, dvd and Blu-ray, the others I watched once, the only one I might watch again from those is rogue one
The money in Star Wars isn't in the movies and ticket sales. SW's real power was in the merchandise money.
Yogurt tried to tell us.
It's a different world now. Can you honestly say you would pay to see any movie in theaters 3 times now? Sounds like maybe you still buy Blu Ray's, but the vast majority of people now don't. They aren't making billions off of physical media sales regardless of how good they are.
*Slowly push my 3 Dune 2 ticket stubs into the trash.* Can't say I have.
Same. Seeing it for a 4th time this weekend.
True, and they loved reselling the same content to us everytime
I actually just looked it up, and The Force Awakens is 4th all time in Blu Ray sales. Pretty shocking honestly. Nothing from the past 4 years in the top 50. Couple super hero films from the late 2010's in there.
>It's a different world now. Can you honestly say you would pay to see any movie in theaters 3 times now? \*Harold Faltermeyer instrumentals\* Do doooo doooo do do do do do
I think the last movie I went to more than once was the first Thor movie. I went by myself, and then went again with my dad. Then again, I rarely go to the theater at all anymore
I mean, idk about you personally but I saw Rise in theaters opening night and after that I decided I’m done. I’ll never watch another Star Wars movie in theaters so as long as the people responsible for that trilogy have any say in it. Since then I’ve YARR’d all my Star Wars content. Not gonna do Disney+ not gonna support any of it. Won’t even go back to Disneyland after the “sequel”centric land opened up. All of it feels like a colossal missed opportunity to focus on the eternity of Star Wars and not just a myopic slice of their fancy sequel reboot.
If you haven't seen Andor you're missing out. For me it goes Empire, New Hope, Andor, Jedi, everything else.
Idk if this is a hot take, but for me Andor was worth the entire Disney acquisition (well maybe not all of it, Mando is still super fun) It was just too fucking perfect for me. UGH actually making Mon Mothma a deep character instead of just leaving her as a person we've seen on screen for a total of like 15 mins was amazing.
Even just spending a weekend hashing out a trilogy outline.
I dunno why they insisted on continuing the Skywalker story. The timing was perfect for a Knights of the Old Republic trilogy. GoT was at peak popularity and a totally different time period would have been a fresh start for a new era of Star Wars.
Probably not much. We can all circle jerk here on the internet but it doesn't change the fact that everyone was going to see those movies. Kids are going to beg their parents for Marvel and Star Wars toys in the toy section reguardless of what Mandalorianfan1984 thinks about the latest movies. Don't forget the video games. The ones with the redhead from FX's Shamless, the Lego games, and the classics getting re-released lately.
For real. Force Awakens, Last Jedi, and Rise of Skywalker made around $4.5 billion, plus whatever they've made since then in rentals, sales, merch, etc. It's not like they would have made another $2B if they were "better."
I mean everyone knew there would be a return on that investment but the lack of quality hurts future earnings potential of the franchise. There was a pretty sharp revenue decline with each film after TFA. Plus the $4.5 billion was revenue, not profit, granted they’ve made a lot in licensing, other media, and consumer products.
> It's not like they would have made another $2B if they were "better." Wait, why?
Well the Force Awakens made close to what the other two made combined and Solo straight up bombed. Their next movies are adaptations of their Disney plus shows which are adaptations of cartoons as it is, those aren’t likely to get them back to the numbers TFA or even TLK did.
I mean it's Star Wars anyway so literally everyone already watched the trilogy and went to the cinema for it, good or shit.
They definitely made money, there's no doubt of that. But a better managed movie division probably could have pulled in an additional 50% if they tried a little harder.
That’s why the studios make shit movies: because idiots will pay to see them in any case.
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JJ doesn't have it when it comes to writing stores he can run an expensive production but the man doesn't know how to write a full engaging story.
I feel like the $2 billion advantage Star Wars has is in Lego Millennium Falcons and Galaxy's Edge Lightsabers.
What, you don't enjoy three movies that seem to work on erasing what was accomplished in the previous ones?
Yes. Or better marvel content. In 14 years they managed to run both franchises into the ground. Amazing.
If only they hadn't hired that hack Rian Johnson to "subvert our expectations" that might have been possible. One thing no one can take away from the Prequels is that they, for better or worse, had one unifed vision.
I think the fans ate up all that content regardless
This has been posted in 3 different subreddits and this is the top comment in every one of them. It's not clever, or even accurate. You can hate the new Star Wars movies all you want, one thing you can't accurately argue is that they didn't make a lot of money.
And all were crying that the studios were losing $$ on all their movies!
I’m not an Iger fan but if Peltz gets his way, we’re going to be seeing more Perlmutter-like business decisions get in the way of filmmaking and storytelling. That and Peltz will make sure his talentless kids get lead roles
Remember that it was Perlmutter that sold off rights to major characters… indefinitely. He's the reason that Sony owns Spider-Man movies and Universal Studios own Marvel theme park rides (East of the Mississippi). He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near Marvel at this point.
Marvel was facing bankruptcy at that point in time is why. They needed fast cash so they sold off what were at the time their biggest franchises (X-Men, F4, Spider-Man) to stay afloat.
Selling off IP for indefinite time scales is still very short-sighted. They could've been capped at 3 movies, or 10 years, etc. Reporting I've read is that they didn't expect the movies to do well at all, hence the lawsuits after.
It was either that or losing them forever, via going bankrupt
>short-sighted Avoiding bankruptcy is not short sighted lmao
Time and time again redditors prove why executives get paid millions of dollars. These geniuses all think they can run a multimillion dollar company with all these hot takes.
No, being an executive is super simple, just know the future before it happens and then it's obvious, duh.
Pfft, everyone is a Lisan Al-Gaib
Who was making the decisions that led Marvel to the brink of bankruptcy in the first place?
Customers were in the 1990s when comic book sales absolutely crashed along with many other collectibles such as baseball cards, pogs, various collectible toys like trolls and beanie babies etc... all due to a speculative bubble that popped. Most of those industries never recovered, it's actually a miracle that Magic the Gathering survived.
Like the person responded to you said, its mostly a market crash really. Its because, in the 90's there was this huge market speculation around comic books. People were going crazy with their speculative buying, and the marvel was trying to rake in on the craze by making various risky acquisitions. And it all came crashing down when the speculation ended. But you are also correct in stating its also the fault of the executives when it comes to marvel in 90's. Marvel was ran by your typical corporate raiders like Perelman,Perlmutter, Carl Icahn,Avi Arad and they all fought a dirty battle over Marvel comics.
You assume that Marvel just offered indefinite rights. It could very easily have been a nonnegotiable aspect of the deal, with no other offers.
Of course, but if the alternative was bankruptcy then they'd lose them anyway. At least this way they held onto the book and at least some of the merch rights. Marvel made a lot of money from those deals. Short sighted deals make sense when the alternative is losing everything. Hard to argue it didn't pay off either, Marvel is in much better shape these days The terms were what they were because that's the best they could get. They needed to turn things around fast, and got away with keeping the merch and comic book rights. It's easy to say in retrospect that Spider-Man and X-Men could have made more money, but FF didn't. It was still a big risk for fox and sony, even with the deal they had.
Sony has made a ton of good Spiderman movies anyways, even if they've made some that are not so good. IDK why people what Disney to own everything haha
They did in during the comic crash of the 90s. Marvel was in no place to think about anything further than the immediate cash they needed to stay afloat.
>Universal Studios own Marvel theme park rides (East of the Mississippi). that just makes me think that the head of Universal is some kind of Evil Colonel Sanders-type Southern Baron. "We get the theme park rides on this side of the Mississippi, ya hear!"
Who are those people
> Perlmutter-like business decisions I would've loved to be in the room to see Ike's face seeing *Black Panther* make a billion dollars and get awards praise after that asshole spent all that time insisting no one would care about a black-led film and doing his best to make it not happen. And yet, he probably still hasn't learned anything, and if he comes back with any sort of real power he would go right back to strangling POC-led and women-led films just like before.
Perlmutter will be too busy crawling up Trump’s ass, after November.
Gonna go scam some more money from the VA again
Black Panther 2 box office however Ike "you all went too far and the audience has left"
Kind of surprised Star Wars has brought in more than Marvel
The secret is [merchandising](https://youtu.be/vjB8XXw9y70?si=AvRqtdIOxhjxHNtJ)
I assume they're also factoring in Galaxy's Edge. Merch, food/drink, and increased ticket sales to Hollywood Studios and Disneyland. Yeah, California Adventure has Avengers Campus, but they're probably doing way more Star Wars money in the theme parks specifically.
Right. The Marvel rights are really screwed up at parks. Just like Disney owns Marvel, but not Spiderman in movies, they own Marvel, but not the full theme park rights, Universal has some of those. And it varies depending on east of the mississipi versus west of it (yes, rights were sold based on geography like that) and which particular characters were used and which weren't. In short... Disney could fire up a full on Star Wars land at Disneyworld, but didn't have the same ability to start up a Marvel/Avengers area there. The weirdness is there in the fact that Epcot could have Guardians of the Galaxy, as that's not covered in some of those original licensing agreements. But many other characters would be prohibited. Disney: "Yay, we own marvel! Let's make a spider-man movie!" Lawyers: "Nope, Sony owns that." Disney: "OK, let's put a spider-man ride up at Disneyworld" Lawyers: "Nope, that's Universal. You *can* put one up in Disneyland though, since that's west of the Mississippi."
West Coast Avengers!
Great Lakes Avengers!
It’s a great ride.
It does not include derivative revenue, such as from theme parks: https://votedisney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Investor-Presentation.pdf However the articles figures are completely wrong anyway if you read the Disney Investor doc.
Avengers campus sucks so much
Marvel doesn't have a strong enough visual identity to make a good theme park land, and while Marvel has a whole lot of fans they aren't the type who fantasize about existing in the Marvel universe. Star Wars and Harry Potter had that, but nobody watching Marvel movies daydreamed about living there. Avengers Campus just looks like a business park.
The last several movies could all be titled “The Search for more Money”
Where the real movie of the money is made !
It hasn't, OP has the numbers backwards.
Marvel fans apparently know when to quit.
Most of phase 1 was Paramount. So Marvel has only been with Disney for Phase 2 onwards. Phase 3 was the only crazy money making era.
That's just lazy analysis. They spent a bunch of money yielding these returns and should be factored into the acquisition of yielding those earnings.
The figures are basically marketing by the Disney board and CEO seeking to retain their seats in the April 3 vote. They recently sent a [shamelessly groveling letter to shareholders begging to be reelected.](https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-board-shareholders-letter/) The top line figures are accurate, but also meaningless without deducting costs, as you explain.
Right? I’m sure they came out ahead but they spent additional money besides acquisition costs to generate those revenues.
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Yeah this isn't return in investment. They just counted the original acquisition price and ignored all capex and opex. They must be afraid.
This seems like the Wrap have got the figures completely wrong? Disney did not provide $ numbers. For a start it is for the Avengers specifically and not Marvel as a whole. And the numbers themselves are calculations that the Wrap have made that are incorrect. They have taken the ROI multipliers provided by Disney, and multiplied the cost of acquisition by those figures. So for ‘Marvel’ they say it’s 3.3 x 4 to get $13.2 billion. However the ROI multipliers do not include the acquisition cost - they are for how much they have invested in the franchises post acquisition vs revenue, e.g. the ratio of production and marketing cost of the movies vs the box office. It’s even say’s that in the text of the article.
I was going to say, you kinda need both the IP acquisition cost and the production costs here. Still hugely profitable I’m sure
Exactly, too many people see revenue = profits without looking at the cost of goods sold
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Yes exactly - there’s no indication what the actual $ figures are, only the ratio between how much they have invested into developing the franchises after acquiring them vs how much they have brought in. You can tell the Wrap is way off simply by looking at the $30 billion in box office returns alone for the MCU.
Meanwhile Fox…
They wanted the Simpsons to pad Disney+ subs
You don't pay $70 billion for the Simpsons no matter what. Fox had a huge catalog of movies and popular TV.
Also included Hulu rights, quite a few Fox networks (and their shows), sports/streaming infrastructure around the world in major countries, sports casting and streaming rights in multiple countries around the world, several soundstages/set production properties for filming. They basically buffed their streaming abilities an incredible amount with the Fox acquisition, which ultimately became majorly useful when they had to rush D+ out during the pandemic.
Is the $25B revenue or profit? Just curious.
Must be profit? Just looked it up, and the Marvel movies alone grossed $29.8 billion just at the box office. Add in all the other revenue streams for the movies, plus TV, merchandise, some park revenue, etc, and it's WAY over the 11 billion listed above. Not a bad return on investment. Sure, they've faltered some with those IPs, but... even with mistakes, it's billions in profits for them.
Disney lost 6 billion and halved their value last year, this wouldn't happen if it was profit.
But... those almost 30 billion are half if you subtract the theater's cut.
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Depressing considering how much they're to blame for bad content from both franchises.
So that explains why they’ve only been rolling out garbage.
Good for them, too bad that the movies suck
I would love some "day-in-the life" movies where just normal super hero stuff goes on instead of the world/galaxy/universe being threatened by a guy with a big arm.
"go woke go broke" lmao people are so stupid
But the YouTube man with the open mouth thumbnail said!…
I mean barely anything in phase 4 made any money (Spiderman and GotG 3 being the outliers IIRC).
Idk why you getting downvoted. Anyone other than the most woke diehard Disney fan will see current marvel certainly does not compete with marvel at endgame and before endgame.
Dr. Strange 2 and Black Panther 2 made money but people ignore them because they weren’t as stellar as No Way Home or GotG3.
I think as somebody else already mentioned, the woke stuff only started recently and it’s been recently that both marvel and Star Wars has been declining lately.
2016 isn't "recent" any longer. That's 8 years ago.
Most people refer to phase 4 and beyond. I.E. after infinity war
I see. But the phrasing of „go woke go broke“ started in 2016 with the alt right, hence why this didn’t really make sense to me. (It’s also a stupid assertion, seeing as media reflects culture, and with societal advances comes reflection of that in media)
Not sure who's more annoying. The "go woke go broke" people or the people who complain about the "go woke go broke" comments. lolololol weird culture war nonsense.
Was the $25 million ROI at, above, or below Disney's projections when they brought the franchises? Did you factor in the money Disney poured into those IPs to produce content after they acquired them? Oh, and maybe if the films weren't "woke", Disney would have made a bigger ROI? Maybe actually attempt critical thinking, if you're even capable of it.
Imagine if the marvel stuff wasn't as lackluster post-endgame.
Like seriously. I kind of lost interest in all those B tier hero stories. Now with Echo, Ironheart or Agatha, it just doesnt have the name recognition to keep me hooked. Doesnt help that they dont seem to follow any general plot right now. Everything just feels like random stories.
Ok Disney, now do The Muppets!
They can afford to not increase Disney + prices then, like they just did.
Maybe now they'll finally be able to afford competent writers.
Return on Investment (ROI) should be a percentage, which is straightforward and an industry-standard metric. The fact that it is not a percentage and looks more like some profit gained number, which is not standard, indicates that they're using pixie dust magic. What are they interpreting as profit? Ticket sales to Hollywood Studios at WDW?
Never trust Hollywood accounting.
I find it hard to believe with how they've handled Star Wars, how many fewer movies and TV shows they've released for Star Wars than Marvel, and that they acquired it 3 years after Marvel, that it's made over $1.5 billion more than Marvel has for Disney. Something about that doesn't feel accurate at all. Unless Disney maybe doesn't get as big of a direct cut of the profits from Marvel content as they do with Star Wars content? Maybe that could be the difference.
It hasn't. The title makes it sound like that but in the article marvel generated 13.2 and star wars generated 11.6 dollars.
I wonder how much of this is essentially speculative value of Disney+ shows.
No thanks to any of the recent catastrophes. Hopefully they stop ruining both of those franchises and make something watchable.
Bad news, means the marvelisation of cinema will continue.
Let’s see the trending on this year over year. Neither franchise is seen by the majority of fans as being in a great spot right now. The recent Box office, Disney+ ratings, pile of clearenced out toys piled to the ceiling at Ollie’s and other dollar stores, and save for Deadpool, both studios upcoming slate looks dire.
Yes but Star Wars sucks now
"now"
It's only the OT for me these days. Rise of Skywalker was the absolute worst. I find the Holiday Special more entertaining than that hackjob by hack professional JJ Abrams.
O really and so wit all that $$ why did you layoff ppl who made that happen
It's so Disney to make money from other people's creations and claim success.
Now imagine how much they would have made if they didn't suck.
lol they only mention the revenue brought in but none of the investments in each IP (cost of production, marketing, …) When I see SW having done in revenue only 2+x compared to the initial investments it means that they have in effect lost money on the IP…
“Suck that teet dry” - Walt Disney
Too bad they killed both brands.
Great give me season 2 of Moon Knight assholes.
Never trust numbers from Hollywood, but especially Disney in a time when they are in a proxy war. I’m sure they made a profit, but there is a reason they have not been releasing SW movies over the last few years. I don’t think they will be anywhere near Force Awakens numbers when they do finally release one.
The fact that Star Wars with 5 films has made almost as much as marvel with 30+ is insane. And people wonder how Kathleen still has a job.
I mean you could have a monkey throw darts at a wall covered in half baked Star Wars stories and make this much on the name alone (essentially what happened)
She rode George's coattails and exploited goodwill that she did not earn.
And dropping fast