Hype machine ready for next ‘Star Wars’
Disney is harnessing all of its media might to make the next “Star Wars” movie the biggest film of the year, employing augmented reality and social media in a global campaign to promote “The Last Jedi” and related merchandise.
Starting Friday, fans of the sci-fi films can use smartphones to take part in an augmented-reality treasure hunt similar to the Pokemon Go craze that gripped videogame fans last year.
The worldwide Find the Force hunt will take place over three days, starting in Sydney, Australia, and will involve 20,000-plus stores in 30 countries, Disney said in a statement last week.
Disney’s Star Wars movies — it has released two since buying Lucasfilm for $4 billion in 2012 — rank among the biggest ever, and the studio, based in Burbank, California, plans a total of at least six.
Key to the company’s success has been its ability to draw in a new generation of fans, especially given the decline in U.S. box-office sales. The movie is scheduled to open Dec. 15.
As part of the campaign, Disney has created a smartphone app that is activated by special logos on cut-out figures in stores. Fans who turn up to buy action figures or drones from the new lineup of products can use the devices to discover characters, pose with them and share the images on social media. Fans who post on social media can win prizes, such as tickets to the movie premiere.
“This campaign is on a bigger scale than the first Force Friday, both in terms of geographic scope and the number of retailers,” said Paul Southern, a senior vice president at Disney’s Lucasfilm.
The first Force Friday promotion in 2015, tied to “The Force Awakens,” sparked a sevenfold increase in online sales of Star Wars toys for September. The studio drummed up excitement for new action figures and toys with a global unwrapping of “Star Wars” merchandise on YouTube and coverage on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The movie went on to become the top-grossing U.S. movie ever.
Although toy sales soared, Disney faced a backlash for failing to adequately include Rey, the film’s female lead character, in action-figure sets and themed games such as Monopoly. Disney underestimated demand, and the shortage was compounded by a limited roll-out of new merchandise designed to avoid revealing too much about the new “Star Wars” hero.
This time around, Rey features centrally in the promotions and the company is working to avoid shortages.
“This film is focused on Rey, and that is reflected on the consumer-product side,” Southern said. “She is front and center.”
In “The Last Jedi,” Daisy Ridley reprises the role of Rey, rejoined by John Boyega as Finn, Adam Driver as the villain Kylo Ren and Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron. Mark Hamill returns as Luke Skywalker.
The film is forecast to open with North American weekend sales of $230 million and go on to generate as much as $2 billion globally, according to Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at boxofficepro.com.
“The Last Jedi” marks the third film that Disney has made from the George Lucas action series. The first, “The Force Awakens,” drew $936.7 million in the United States and Canada, unseating “Avatar” as the domestic record holder, and generated more than $2 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” was the first of potentially three standalone stories. The film, released in December 2016, generated $1.06 billion worldwide, making it No. 2 for the year.