This bank holiday was national ‘Star wars’ day -que all the jokes about May the 4th be with you -well done, glad we got that out the way early. Mention of Star Wars made me think about the huge amounts of toys, books, cds and other gear that has come out other the years alongside the movie. If it can be sold it has had the star wars logo on it -Bubble bath, posters, toys etc- but maybe thats the brilliance of George Lucas right there.

Star Wars was the first real film to think about merchandising for a film, and it paid off big time. Lucas’s contract stated that he got the rights to produced merchandise on the movie, which with merchandise for films not being the big business it is now -Fox were to fussed- Was that a mistake? No one could have predicted how successful this movie was going to be -Even George Lucas didnt know- he just had a shrewd idea of how to market the movies. Taking the merchandising rights allowed him to produced what he wanted to help sell the movie -and when Star wars mania hit the world, he just couldnt keep up with the demand for the promotional merchandise. This demand also helped convince the banks to help fund Lucas for the second Star wars movie and put more money into his company LucasFilm.

The movies didnt just change film making -but film marketing to. Ever since there have been art books, action figures, t-shirts and many more items of branded merchandise. Movie studios litterally couldnt ignore the millions that the movies were bringing in just from t-shirts and other merchandise- but could you blame then? More exposure for their movie and bringing in some more revenue. Because most of us, even if its just one item, have some form of movie merchandise lying around the house -posters, t-shirts, cds, books -the potential for it is huge -and George Lucas took advantage of it to help his ‘small space picture’ out.

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