Star Wars was the first Lego license — 25 years later, it's 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 like.”

Frederiksen is just not the one one. Since 1999, followers have rallied across the license, scooping up every 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 type 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 a substitute of one in every of Lego’s iconic spherical faces, Frederiksen mentioned.

Now, Lego Star Wars has turn into a blueprint for the corporate’s different model offers — suppose 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 feel for us actually seeing that unlock, and the way it actually allowed folks to open up their imaginations otherwise and categorical their creativity otherwise, is I feel what Star Wars did for us.”

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

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

The Lego Star Wars collaboration got here at a time of monetary 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 turn into too diversified. Lego was on the point of chapter.

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

“It has been massively profitable and continues to achieve success right now as a gaming franchise,” mentioned Paul Southern, senior vp of third-party commercialization and franchise growth at Disney. “It created the world.”

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

The privately held firm gives biannual glimpses at its steadiness sheet. In March, Lego reported that it grew sales 2% in 2023, at the same time as the worldwide toy trade noticed sales slip 7%, in keeping with information from Circana.

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

Though it was a smaller achieve than earlier years — the corporate noticed total gross sales soar 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 comparable to Lego Star Wars enchantment to a number of demographics and generations.

Lego sells units at quite a lot of worth 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 vital. Lego can draw on almost 50 years’ price of content material to thrill 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 artistic and galvanizing to play with, nevertheless it must also be an incredible constructing expertise.”

That’s the reason Lego takes some inventive freedom with the units that it provides. For instance, an Imperial Shuttle is sort of utterly white. Nevertheless, giving prospects a pile of white bricks would make it “not possible to search 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 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 quite a bit with properties and with Star Wars, perhaps extra so than others, is it is one thing that households do collectively,” Wilfert mentioned. “Usually, you are first launched to Star Wars by means of a mother or father, your dad and mom grew up loving Star Wars, and we simply see that having issues in our portfolio that enable these connections and permit households to attach collectively, we’re actually seeing the relevancy of that.”

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

“We try to be sure that we’re in related locations the place we all know children are occupying their time,” Wilfert mentioned.

The Lego Star Wars model has advanced to embody extra than simply bricks and mini figures — it has turn into its personal ecosystem, mentioned Southern.

“The world of Lego Star Wars sits as a separate identification inside our total enterprise, and that makes it very distinctive,” he 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 turn 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 a bit bit cheeky, a bit bit extra enjoyable,” Southern mentioned.

And that humor has prolonged to different franchises.

“Star Wars, you realize, allowed us to actually open up folks’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 keen to form of allow us to play a bit bit.”

Between video video games and animated tasks, Lego has labored with franchises comparable to 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 children have for that model and we have taken that into different areas,” Southern mentioned, noting, that together with video video games, Lego Star Wars may also be discovered within the publishing part and even in attire.

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

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

The lengthy license lead time permits Disney and Lego to work collectively on long-term tasks comparable to 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 count on to be right here in one other 25 years, celebrating the way in which we have advanced our relationship and made it related for the generations to come back.”