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June 2008 | Vol. VII - No. 6

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Indiana May Trump Iron Man at Toy Sales

Year’s Big Toy Flicks Play Their Way Through

By: Lutz Muller
6/1/2008

"'Iron Man' continues to exhibit strength, but 'Indiana Jones' is overtaking it."

June 18, 2008 – When I first wrote about toy-related films roughly six weeks ago, I overlooked the fact that there is yet another entrant into the toy sweepstakes — “Wall-E” by Pixar. This range of product is distributed by Thinkway Toys Canada, and the products are already solidly present at Toys “R” Us.

Here is the entire line-up:

Movie Title	Category	Release Date	Sequel /Similar to	Toy Licensee
Iron Man	Action Figures	05/02/2008	None/ Transformers	Hasbro
Speed Racer	Vehicles	05/09/2008	None/CARS	Mattel
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian	Action Figures	05/16/2008	None	Jakks
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull	Action Figures	05/22/2008	None	Hasbro
Kung Fu Panda	Preschool	06/06/2008	None/ Ratatouille	Mattel
The Incredible Hulk	Action Figures	06/13/2008	The Hulk	Hasbro
Wall-E	Preschool	06/27/2008	Ratatouille	Thinkway Toys
The Dark Knight (Batman)	Action Figures	07/08/2008	Batman Begins	Mattel
Star Wars: The Clone Wars	Action Figures	08/15/2008	Star Wars: Episode III -Revenge of the Sith	Hasbro
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince	Action Figures	11/21/2008	Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	Corgi/NECA

The better a movie does on the box office, the better the licensed toys will do in the stores. I am first showing the box office results, in millions of dollars per week cumulatively, for the action figure movies until June 8:

“Indiana Jones” has overtaken “Iron Man” and is closing on “Transformers” in box-office terms.

“The Incredible Hulk” was released this past weekend. Since I have only one data point, I am showing this as a bar chart compared to “Iron Man”:

As you can see, it started off respectably — about on par with “Prince Caspian” for the first weekend.

I am also showing, below, Blog Metrics as they apply to these currently running three movies:

Both charts demonstrate that “Iron Man” continues to exhibit strength but “Indiana Jones” is overtaking it. “Prince Caspian” is very much in third place. This is also reflected in the sell-through data reported by my retailer panel.

Looking further out, these are the Blog Metrics for the next three action figure movies:

This suggests that “Batman” is, at least in terms of consumer interest, already flagging whilst “Hulk” and “Star Wars” are gaining strength.

As for the movies focusing on vehicles, this is the picture from box-office sales, in millions of dollars:

Since this is the seventh weekend for “Speed Racer,” this graph demonstrates that the movie went nowhere. “Speed Racer” was supposed to take over from “CARS” in driving growth for the vehicles category. This is not happening and this again is reflected very clearly by the sell-through data generated by my retailer panel.

As for preschool films, the only one playing today is “Kung Fu Panda.” As I have only one data point so far, I am showing its box-office performance as a bar chart, comparing it with “Ratatouille”:

And in terms of Blog Metrics:

This suggests that “Kung Fu Panda” is doing pretty well. The brand now has decent distribution, which suggests that Mattel learned its lesson from last year when it had only three “Ratatouille” SKUs at Toys “R” Us when the movie broke. The company now has 11 SKUs at Wal-Mart, two at Target and 20 at Toys “R” Us. The range is moving well in all three. “Wall-E” is currently only at Toys “R” Us with 16 SKUs, and it, too, is starting to move.

Writer's Bio: Lutz Muller is a Swiss who has lived on five continents. In the United States, he was the CEO for four manufacturing companies, including two in the toy industry. Since 2002, he has provided competitive intelligence on the toy and video game market to manufacturers and financial institutions coast-to-coast. He gets his information from his retailer panel, from big-box buyers and his many friends in the industry. If anything happens, he is usually the first to know. Read more on his website at www.klosterstrading.com. Read more articles by this author