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Star Wars

I bought one of the DVDs!

“Revenge” Is Sweet on DVD
As Yoda might say, sales are strong with this one.
After just one week on sale, the DVD for Star Wars: Episode III–Revenge of the Sith and LucasArts’ latest videogame, Star Wars Battlefront II, generated a Hutt-sized $210 million in combined worldwide sales, according to figures released Tuesday by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
Fox and Lucasfilm did not release the exact units sold for the DVD and videogame or how much money each made separately. But Jim Ward, senior vice president of Lucasfilm and president of LucasArts, said the numbers were mind-boggling.
“The phenomenal sales underscore the enduring strength of the series,” said Ward. “In many territories, DVD and game sales were nearly double what we initially expected.”
The long-heralded prequel, the last installment of George Lucas’ epic six-part space saga, has been the biggest moneymaker of 2005, setting box-office records on its way to grossing $848 million in worldwide ticket sales. It was released on DVD in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, Australia and Latin America on Nov. 1.
And, in a strategy choreographed with the precision of a 501st Legion maneuver, the Lucas Empire decided to debut the latest Star Wars videogame on the same day as the two-disc Sith set. Battlefront II, in which players can reenact the greatest battles in the movies, is poised to surpass last year’s original to claim the title of best-selling Star Wars videogame of all time, with copies selling at a 40 percent higher clip than its predecessor.
In September 2004, LucasFilm and Fox released the DVD box set of the original Star Wars trilogy (with some minor, if controversial alterations) at the same time it put out the first Battlefront game, generating $115 million in first-day sales between them.
“Amid all this humdrum about disappointing box office and underwhelming CD and DVD sales, no one seems to mention the billions…of dollars Obi-Wan and company took to the bank in 2005,” says Mike Destaino, columnist and reviewer for DVDfile.com. “Then again, Star Wars is just about the surest sale in the world: Even if the movie was called Star Wars: Episode III:–Jar Jar Binks Goes to Candyland, Lucasfilm would sell 3 trillion copies.”
But some industry analysts took issue with Fox’s boastings.
“There’s no way to know based on that release how it stacks up against anything, which is I’m sure why they put it out the way they did and refuse to break out any numbers for DVD versus videogame, or U.S. Sales versus selected international territories,” grouses Scott Hettrick, editor of the trade paper Video Exclusive. “That leaves no possible way to create an apples-to-apples comparison.”
Hettrick did say that initial U.S. figures show Sith sold at least 5 million copies, besting Warner Bros.’ Batman Begins DVD.
“Star Wars DVDs are never the biggest sellers of the year and never break any records,” Hettrick says. “The same will be true this year with Sith. [But] because there is such a weak slate of competing titles and no Spider-Man or Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, it will almost certainly be the top-selling live-action DVD title of the year and may wind up as the second biggest DVD seller well behind The Incredibles.
Nonetheless, the Star Wars marketing machine is still a powerful force to be reckoned with.
Not only were characters from the space opera the most popular Halloween costume line this year, with Darth Vader leading the way, but Star Wars toys are outselling its closest rivals two-to-one, claiming 9.1 percent of the U.S. toy market. And the brand is expanding rapidly.
This Thursday, Donald Trump will host a special Star Wars-themed version of Apprentice. Promotional spots airing on TV and the Web show the Donald saying “you’re fired” to a briefcase-toting Chewbacca and reprimanding Darth Vader for shoddy construction work on the Death Star. The Apprentice teams will compete to see who can put up the best Battlefront II display at Best Buy stores.