From BusinessWeek - December 25, 1995


THE EMPIRE STRIKES AGAIN
18 Years Later, Star Wars is once more a marketing smash


The Skywalkers and Chewbaccas have been snapped up.  Han Solo,
too.  Power Rangers?  Losing power.  Ninja Tutrles?  Turtle
soup.  Instead, an empire is striking back, sending parents
across the U.S. scouting franatically for Star Wars action 
figures.

That's right, Star Wars.  The marketing juggernaut that once 
flooded the nation with products based on the movie is back
with new figures, videotapes, and games.  This Christmas, children
not born when Obi-Wan Kenobi talked about the Force have been
sold on the idea.

FIVE YEAR PLAN
Since the August rerelease of the videotapes, consumers have bought
more than 16 million copies.  Computer games connected to the
flicks such as Rebel Assault are hits, too.  With no megatoy rivals,
the action figures, made by Hasbro Inc., rank third on Playthings
magazines's annual list of hot toys - first among those geared
to boys.  "When there isn't some kind of hot commodity, children
revert to core brands," says Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Eric R.
Katzman.

The return of Star Wars is a deliberate five-year campaign, 
masterminded by director George Lucas' LucasFilms.  A 20th-
anniversary edition of Star Wars, includeing scenes cut from the 
original, will open in theaters in 1997.  Starting in 1998, one new 
Star Wars film a year will appear for three years.

To kids, the Star Wars stuff is simply cool.  Max Denby, a New
York seventh-grader born just after Return of the Jedi opened,
watches the video and plays the games.  "Star Wars has a fun, 
adventure-movie sense to it," he says, expressing wonder anything
so old could be so good.  If the marketers have their way,
Denby and his pals will be hooked on Star Wars well into the next
century.

By David Leonhardt in New York