STORY: Tangled Rights Could Tie Up Ultimate ‘Star Wars’ Box Set Since then Marvel has seen big increases in consumer product sales and Disney expects the same to happen with Star Wars. Rasulo said in 2012, Lucasfilm revenue from licensing and merchandising will be around $215 million, which is roughly equal to what Marvel was doing when they acquired that brand in 2009. Disney will also use its own divisions to handle those sales – including featuring Star Wars products in Disney stores – which means they can eliminate the middlemen and ramp up their revenue and profits in the consumer merchandising arena. The sales they do make overseas are through middlemen who take a significant share of the profits off the top.ĭisney plans to greatly expand the kinds of licensing well beyond toys, and will do a major push into the rapidly growing international markets. The majority of Lucasfilm’s deals are for toys, and more than half their sales are in the U.S. Iger says one area in which they see huge potential is in merchandising and licensing.

PHOTOS: The ‘Star Wars’ Universe: $20 Billion Worth of Toys, Rides, Books and Games He said they assumed in their planning for that market to continue to decrease as a source of revenue, even with the gradual shift from physical media to electronic delivery of content. One area in which Disney made very conservative projections, Rasulo says, was in home entertainment, where the market has been trending downward for several years. “This will fit perfectly into the Disney portfolio (of properties),” Rasulo added. “We believe we can do great things with these assets as well,” added Iger. Iger said Disney’s experience acquiring Pixar, which made them a top brand for children again, and then Marvel, which pushed them to the top level in action heroes, has shown they know how to grow and exploit these big franchises. The Walt Disney Company will issue 40 million new shares to acquire Lucasfilm, which represent about 2 percent of the current stock market valuation for the company but they intend to repurchase everyone of those shares by 2014, well before the first new Star Wars movie hits theaters in 2015 – and still make other share re-purchases already planned.ĪNALYSIS: What a New ‘Star Wars’ Movie Might Look Like

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