Star Wars was the primary Lego license — 25 years later, it is stronger than ever

If you’re a Star Wars fan, Jens Kronvold Frederiksen could have crafted your childhood.

A design director on the Denmark-based Lego firm, he has spent the previous 25 years creating Lego Star Wars units.

“I went to my boss and mentioned, ‘Hey, you want me on this product line,'” Frederiksen advised CNBC. “For me, it was similar to a dream come true. Star Wars and Lego collectively, two issues I really like.”

Frederiksen is just not the one one. Since 1999, followers have rallied across the license, scooping up every little thing from Darth Vader mini determine keychains to $850 Millennium Falcon units that includes greater than 7,500 items. The model has additionally grown to incorporate half a dozen video video games and a slew of animated content material on Disney+. It additionally now has its own residence on Epic Video games’ popular online game platform Fortnite.

The Star Wars license was the primary of its variety for Lego, which had by no means created an official product line tied to licensed mental property earlier than. In reality, the Jar Jar Binks mini determine was the primary ever to characteristic a customized head sculpt as an alternative of one in every of Lego’s iconic spherical faces, Frederiksen mentioned.

Now, Lego Star Wars has change into a blueprint for the corporate’s different model offers — assume Harry Potter, Batman and Marvel’s Avengers.

“We had been creating themes, however we weren’t all the time essentially connecting these with the deeper story,” mentioned Jill Wilfert, head of worldwide leisure companions and content material at Lego. “And I believe for us actually seeing that unlock, and the way it actually allowed individuals to open up their imaginations differently and specific their creativity differently, is I believe what Star Wars did for us.”

Wilfert, who has been with Lego for 36 years, mentioned there was a variety of trepidation at Lego previous to the Star Wars deal about doing any form of third-party licensing.

“As soon as we noticed how nicely it translated and the way individuals responded to it, it actually did give us extra confidence,” she mentioned.

The Lego Star Wars collaboration got here at a time of economic turmoil for Lego. Within the early 2000s, the corporate was coping with excessive debt, stiff competitors from digital gaming platforms and a portfolio that had change into too diversified. Lego was on the point of chapter.

Robust gross sales of Lego Star Wars in addition to the Lego-owned Bionicle franchise helped keep the company afloat whereas it diminished its product traces and shut down noncore companies. In 2005, the corporate launched a Lego Star Wars online game.

“It has been vastly profitable and continues to achieve success in the present day as a gaming franchise,” mentioned Paul Southern, senior vice chairman of third-party commercialization and franchise growth at Disney. “It created the world.”

20 years later, Lego Star Wars stays one of many top-selling brands for Lego and the corporate sees robust gross sales even when there are not any new theatrical releases tied to its product.

The privately held firm gives biannual glimpses at its stability sheet. In March, Lego reported that it grew sales 2% in 2023, whilst the worldwide toy trade noticed sales slip 7%, based on information from Circana.

The toymaker as soon as once more cited Lego Star Wars as a driving pressure behind these gross sales. Lego Icons, Lego Technic, Lego Metropolis and Lego Harry Potter additionally carried out nicely.

Though it was a smaller achieve than earlier years — the corporate noticed general gross sales leap 27% in 2021 and 17% in 2022 — Lego has continued to snap up market share within the toy trade. A lot of that has to do with the truth that manufacturers resembling Lego Star Wars attraction to a number of demographics and generations.

Lego sells units at quite a lot of value factors and difficulties, permitting children to place collectively smaller, easier fashions and act out scenes from the franchise, whereas hardcore collectors can construct extra detailed replicas of their favourite ships, helmets and film moments.

The evergreen nature of the franchise is essential. Lego can draw on practically 50 years’ value of content material to please customers of all ages.

“The principle factor for us, in fact, is that that is for youths,” Frederiksen mentioned. “The mannequin ought to be actually enjoyable and inventive and galvanizing to play with, nevertheless it must also be an important constructing expertise.”

That’s the reason Lego takes some artistic freedom with the units that it provides. For instance, an Imperial Shuttle is sort of utterly white. Nevertheless, giving clients a pile of white bricks would make it “inconceivable to seek out the items and wouldn’t be a enjoyable constructing expertise,” he mentioned. So, Lego provides some variation within the brick colours and particulars.

Whereas Frederiksen is just not designing merchandise anymore, he nonetheless builds every little thing. You will need to him to expertise how every set comes collectively.

To have fun the twenty fifth anniversary of the Lego and Star Wars partnership, in addition to the twenty fifth anniversary of “The Phantom Menace,” Lego is releasing quite a few particular units. There may be the TIE Interceptor mannequin that retails for $230, a Mos Espa Podrace diorama for $80, a Droideka mannequin for $65 and new BrickHeadz characters for lower than $10 every.

“What we see so much with properties and with Star Wars, possibly extra so than others, is it is one thing that households do collectively,” Wilfert mentioned. “Usually, you are first launched to Star Wars via a father or mother, your dad and mom grew up loving Star Wars, and we simply see that having issues in our portfolio that permit these connections and permit households to attach collectively, we’re actually seeing the relevancy of that.”

With new digital merchandise resembling video video games and Fortnite, Lego can have interaction with youthful customers.

“We are attempting to make it possible for we’re in related locations the place we all know children are occupying their time,” Wilfert mentioned.

Southern was at Lucasfilm when the partnership with Lego and Star Wars launched. He transitioned over to the Walt Disney Company when Lucasfilm was acquired a decade in the past, so he has seen Lego Star Wars’ development firsthand.

A part of that development is the humor that has change into related to the Lego Star Wars model. This contains slapstick moments in video video games and in animated content material.

“We have established an ecosystem and a tone of voice that permits us to do issues, which, in the end, are form of just a little bit cheeky, just a little bit extra enjoyable,” Southern mentioned.

And that humor has prolonged to different franchises.

“Star Wars, you already know, allowed us to essentially open up individuals’s eyes to how Lego can create humor and attraction to an [intellectual property] that may not exist,” Wilfert mentioned. “We discovered that a lot of the IP homeowners are fairly prepared to form of allow us to play just a little bit.”

Between video video games and animated initiatives, Lego has labored with franchises resembling Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Batman, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, Jurassic World and Pixar’s “The Incredibles.”

However it began with Star Wars, which retains rising.

“We have taken the eagerness that the followers and the youngsters have for that model and we have taken that into different areas,” Southern mentioned, noting, that together with video video games, Lego Star Wars will also be discovered within the publishing part and even in attire.

The variety of product and its robust gross sales led Disney and Lego to increase their contract for Star Wars via 2032.

“The connection has gotten simpler as a result of there are individuals who have been engaged on either side all over the connection,” Southern mentioned. “They’re like household now. It’s totally frank, it is very open, very collaborative.”

The lengthy license lead time permits Disney and Lego to work collectively on long-term initiatives resembling video video games and animation, in addition to celebratory units for main anniversary milestones.

“We’re celebrating 25 years of working collectively,” Southern mentioned. “One of many issues that’s tremendous essential, too, is that we anticipate to be right here in one other 25 years, celebrating the best way we have developed our relationship and made it related for the generations to return.”