What’s the big deal? Coming from a Star Wars fan, let me break it down for you. This new trilogy, kick-started by JJ Abrams, is going to be on a path of epic proportions. We’ve already received a glowing smile and thumbs up from the Star Wars fans who have already seen the film. No spoilers though. You won’t get a review here or any more reveals until you actually watch the film. What you will find here is how much money Disney is about to cash in on with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
For those who aren’t aware, the father of Star Wars, George Lucas sold the rights to the franchise to Disney for over $4 billion. A couple years after and we have our first Star Wars film after Episode III from the prequel trilogy. Here is the mind boggling part of the biggest release event in history. Disney looks to garner over $9.6 billion from the films and its memorabilia. The latest numbers have been published in a Bloomberg Business article, and the breakdown is tremendous.
They are predicting that the first film in the new trilogy will take in over $734 million in the domestic box office. You read that right, domestic. They’ll receive around $458 million from DVDs and downloads, $214 million from TV licensing internationally, $235 million from TV licensing domestically, $500 million from Disney’s Infinity 3.0 videogame, $780 million from Star Wars Battlefront videogame, $1.65 billion in box office sales internationally and $5 billion through merchandise. These numbers are very close to the $9.8 billion Disney received from its Toy Story 3 movie.
Keep in mind, these numbers are only projections. The movie on its own won’t reach the heights of James Cameron’s Titanic, which was a freak of nature at the box office, but it will definitely take the number one spot in the Star Wars universe and in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. It should also be noted that we really aren’t aware of how many times fans will head back to the theatre to get more doses of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In turn, will rack up more revenue for the folks at Disney. I for one, will watch it over, over and over again. May the Force be with you.
