Summer movies drive toys full-speed to shelves
Scott Bowles
USA Today
April 29, 2008
LOS ANGELES —
Forget the battle of the box office. This summer will
mark a showdown of movie toys.
More than 2,000 toys and 6,000 other merchandising
tie-ins — from fast-food trinkets to life-size,
limited-edition busts — are flooding stores to coincide
with summer's biggest movies, including Iron Man, Speed
Racer, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull, The Dark Knight and The Incredible Hulk.
And for now, Speed is in the lead. Mattel has begun its
largest movie-related toy launch by releasing 1,500
action figures, race tracks and versions of the TV
show's famous Mach 5. Nearly 3,000 items, including
blankets, underwear and video games, will arrive in time
for the movie May 9. Also vying for kids' attention and
parents' wallets:
•Iron Man, out Friday, has 275 toys based on the comic
book hero and another 1,475 merchandise promotions.
•The Incredible Hulk, due June 13, will feature about
260 green-hued toys and 1,340 promotional items.
•The Dark Knight, due July 18, will have 950 toys and
another 4,000 merchandising items, plus hundreds of
Batman toys and clothes that have been available since
Tim Burton revived the franchise in 1989.
Lucasfilm, which is releasing Skull, is notoriously
tight-lipped about product sales. The company is a toy
tie-in veteran and has collected billions in sales from
the Star Wars franchise.
The merchandise showdown is, in many ways, an ad war.
"Especially for kids, they'll see the toys before
they'll see the movie ads," says Paul Gitter of Marvel,
which owns the rights to Iron Man and Hulk. "If they
want the toy, they usually want to see the movie."
That's icing for studios. Though the toy industry
staggers in the face of competition from electronic
gadgetry, it still thrives when it comes to movie
tie-ins, sometimes raking in more than $500 million in
sales for retailers and $100 million in royalties to
studios for such films as Cars and Spider-Man.
Toymakers are now being invited to movie sets so they
can replicate props and costumes exactly. Even secretive
Skull director Steven Spielberg divulged key plot points
and photos to Hasbro craftsmen. "We were sworn to
secrecy," says Hasbro's Eric Nyman. "But that's pretty
cool access."
Of course, there's risk if the film flops. "It still
depends on the movie," says Greg Anzalone of Sideshow
Collectibles, which is selling a $700 Iron Man bust. "If
people don't like the movie, they aren't going to want a
piece of it."