As it continues to experience financial convulsions, with investors and film business executives questioning its long-term survival, MoviePass has responded to the crisis in bold fashion: It is now selling merch. The subscription movie ticketing service, which is owned by Helios & Matheson Analytics, has just opened…

Star Wars: The Last Jedi will have to come to Hasbro’s rescue, at least when it comes to the toy maker’s ability to meet Wall Street’s earnings expectations. Company shares are down about 8% in early trading after it reported Q2 sales that — while in line with analyst forecasts — seemed light for “partner brands&#8221…

Star Wars and other entertainment properties helped to lift global spending on licensed merchandise by 4.4%, to $262.9 billion, in 2016, according to an annual tally released today. The International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association (known as LIMA) released its “Annual Global Licensing Industry Survey” to…

Strange as it may sound, Major League Baseball believes it can rescue Star Wars fans victimized by forgers selling phony autographs and memorabilia. Star Wars just became the first entertainment client for Authenticators, Inc. — an MLB-created operation that verifies legitimate autographs and merchandise such as…

Mattel is roaring this morning about the latest win in its effort to secure rights to make toys and other merchandise tied to hit movies. It picked up the master license for Universal’s Jurassic World. The move from Hasbro takes effect in July 2017, in time for the next film in the franchise due in 2018. Mattel CEO…

Worldwide retail sales of licensed merchandise rose by 4.2% last year to $251.7 billion, with help from consumers’ passion for all things Star Wars, the International Licensing  Industry Merchandisers’ Association (LIMA) reports this morning at the kickoff of the industry’s annual Licensing Expo confab in Las…

Hasbro execs should send a nice “thank you” note to Disney for the better-than-expected Q1 financials the toy company reported this morning. The numbers sent its share price up about 4.6% in pre market trading, suggesting it will touch a new 52 week high. Sales of toys related to Star Wars, Frozen, and the Disney…

Studios have a high-class concern as they head to the annual Toy Fair confab taking place in New York from tomorrow to Tuesday. Can they top 2015 when, The NPD Group says, the relaunch of Star Wars helped to propel a 9.4% domestic increase in movie-related toy sales? Many industry watchers believe that they can as…

The Force is paying off for Hasbro investors. The toymaker just raised its dividend by 11% as it reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings, due in part to the success of the sale of merchandise tied to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Hasbro shares are up about 1% on a generally down morning for Wall Street. The company…

It’s appropriate that makers and sellers of toys, clothing, games and other goods built around licensed identities are headed to Las Vegas for this week’s Licensing Expo, the annual industry confab. They always gamble when they decide how much to invest in properties tied to entertainment characters. And this year…

Coca-Cola and merchandisers have been appropriating Santa Claus for years. Now DreamWorks Animation hopes to put its stamp on the (SPOILER ALERT) myth by having Shrek introduce kids to St. Nick when they visit him at shopping malls featuring the studio’s DreamPlace location based experience. DWA just disclosed some…

  There appears to be a trend here that might disturb studios that released family films with the expectation of seeing a windfall from licensed merchandise sales. The new pre-holiday recommendations from Toys ‘R Us (it lists its “Fabulous 15”) and Walmart (it has 23 items it says were “Chosen by Kids”) feature TV…