Marvel’s newest movie, Avengers: Infinity War, has yet again broken a number of records and made over $1 billion in box office sales. This shouldn’t be surprising, considering the fact that their last movie, Black Panther, made $235 million over the course of four days. The amazing world of superheroes and comics is making its way back in style as each new Marvel movie continues to break records, and independent retailers might want to get in on all the fun. It can be hard to keep up with what millennials and other customers are interested in, but if one thing is for sure, it’s that people love summer movies.
According to Vox, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is as old as a fourth-grader and has made over $14 billion worldwide. This jaw-dropping outcome wouldn’t have happened if the comic book company hadn’t almost gone bankrupt in the 90s. In an effort to stave off bankruptcy, Marvel sold off its film rights to its most popular comic book characters: the X-Men to Fox and Spider-Man to Sony, according to Vox. In the early 2000s, Fox and Sony had massive success with the X-Men and Spider-Man movies, which proved that the interest was still out there. Once Marvel came out with their hit Iron Man, making $624 million worldwide, all the classic superheroes started making their way onto the screen.
Action figures have always been a popular toy among young kids. We all remember our favorite one growing up, playing it to death, and sometimes pretending that we had all the amazing powers our little friend did. In a Variety article, the senior research analyst for D.A. Davison said she expects retail sales of Marvel toys to exceed $500 million in 2018. This includes toys for all Marvel properties, such as the more recent “Black Panther” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” If this forecast holds, it would be a nearly flat increase of 2% year over year. The power of each film’s impact has fans demanding merchandise: they want to collect the action figures and dress up as the hero.
Marvel properties like “Spider-Man” and “Captain America” have been some of their more popular toys and other merchandise, so any Avengers: Infinity War merchandise has high hopes since both of those characters are in the new movie. If its box office sales have anything to say about it, these toys will be the next big hit. You also don’t have to strictly sell merchandise: Campbell’s got creative after the release of Marvel’s Black Panther and had a limited edition soup that featured a Black Panther-emblazoned gold label with Avengers-shaped pasta, according to Variety. Puma and Bait also offered limited edition shoes: just 400 pairs of two different sneakers modeled after the sleek black suit worn by King T’Challa from Black Panther.
Even comic book stores are stocking up with the latest Avengers merchandise, such as action figures, comic books, masks, and other collectibles. Alternate Universe comic book store, located in New Haven, CT, had a number of different Avengers-themed comics available for Free Comic Book Day on May 5th. There’s no doubt that box office hits are going to be good toy sellers, but the superheroes in the Marvel and DC universe seem to be an ongoing trend in toy stores all over. Avengers merchandise could very well be the biggest hit of the summer, so start making shelf room now and stock up with the latest collectibles to have people swarming your store.