George Lucas’ decision to accept a lower salary on Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in exchange for full merchandising rights was considered a fool’s gamble on his part. Toys based on movies had never been major money-earners (though some movie-toy combinations had done moderate retail returns) because of the long gap between when a movie would go through its theatrical run and when any products based on it would be available. But Star Wars was such a phenomenon that it reached the holiday 1977 sales period in full swing, and changed the way movies were merchandised forever (x).
