FESTIVE 50 STAR WARS WORK

1. How much did Disney pay to acquire the rights to Star Wars from Lucas Film?

£2.5bn ($4.05bn)

2. Which other major studios/franchises did Disney acquire in 2006 and 2009 respectively?

Pixar (06) and Marvel (09)

3. Why did Josh Dickey believe Disney was a good fit for Star Wars?

Disney are good at branding brands, working with existing intellectual property and making it resonate with fans as well as marketing it well. They're not as good at creating original content.

4. When did the UK introduce generous tax relief for the film industry?

2014

5. How much has Disney earned in tax rebates since 2007?

Since 2007, Disney has earned £170m in tax rebates

6. How many people were employed at Pinewood studios when working on Star Wars The Force Awakens?

Almost 130 staff at a cost of £6m

7. What is Matthew Vaughan's criticism of the UK's tax arrangement (include the full quotation)?

“I think it’s crazy that we subsidise British movies with tax breaks but we don’t get any of that money back. We’re subsidising Hollywood. We’re service providers. We’re not an industry.”

8. How much was Harrison Ford paid to reprise his role as Han Solo?

As high as $20m

9. How much money must the film make before its stars earn 'back end bonuses'? (A back end bonus is when an actor agrees to take a lower fee for staring in a film in return for a share of any profit a film makes over an agreed figure.) 

At least $1bn worldwide

DISTRIBUTION AND MARKETING

10. How much did The Force Awakens take globally on its opening weekend?

$529m

11. Which 5 major companies have signed tie in deals with the film?

Pepsi, Burger King, M&MS/Mars, Hasbro and Kellogg’s

12. How was the White House linked with the film?

White House conferences have been attended by imperial Stormtroopers and the President himself got special screening of the film  

13. The article states "only finite resources for a movie like The Force Awakens are screens and seats: you cannot force four buttocks into one movie seat." What solution have cinemas dreamt up to cope with this problem? 

Cinemas have concluded that viewings should be worked with from a temporal aspect, with weird showings like at 3pm and 5pm in as many as 8 screens per multiplex- quite literally dominating cinemas. 

14. How many screens are being used for saturation play (placing a film on virtually every screen in a cinema)?

2500 screens in the UK and Ireland at around 670 cinemas

15. What is the % rise in box office takings thanks to Star Wars?

512%

16. How is the box office split between 2D, 3D and IMAX?

Disney reports the format splits as 54% of box office in 2D, 36% in 3D and 10% in IMAX.

17. How many mentions has the film had on Weibo?

700,000

18. When does the film open in China?

9th January 2016

19. How was the film promoted to China in October 2015?

In October, the studio flew in an army of 500 stormtroopers to line up on the Great Wall of China as giant billboards flashed with the message “The Force Awakens” in Chinese and fans waved red and blue lightsabers.

20. What other marketing strategy has been used?

The studio hired pop star Lu Han to introduce trailers, with the singer’s band EXO contributing the single Lightsaber.