With the first big comic 'event' movie, Sony's Marvel-based Ghost Rider, opening today, it's time to take a look at the films that offer retailers merchandising opportunities in 2007.  Since the length of time that even the most popular film spends in theaters these days is shrinking, ordering movie-based merchandise involves risks, even though DVD releases of theatrical films often offer retailers a second chance. 

Clearly different types of movies move different kinds of goods -- big blockbusters like Star Wars and Spider-Man can create major sales of toys and trading cards, while smaller films like V for Vendetta and Sin City can outsell their blockbuster brethren many times over when it comes to graphic novels.  The right film, like Terry Zwigoff and Dan Clowes' Ghost World which earned a paltry $5 million at the box office, doesn't even have to sell very many tickets to make a major impact on graphic novel sales. 

For retailers who do most of their ordering based on the previous month's sales or the popularity of a particular property or creative team in the past, obtaining the right amount of movie-based merchandise can present a real challenge; and it appears from this survey that 2007 will present a large number of these challenges.

Ghost Rider is first out of the chute and what it will earn at the box office is anybody's guess.  With a generous (but just sub-blockbuster budget) of $120 million and a major advertising campaign, the film should open well, but its staying power is in doubt in part because Sony declined to let critics see the film before it opens (see 'Sony Stiffs the Scribes'). 

Star Nicholas Cage has done a good job of promoting the picture on the talk shows, where he played the 'Faust card' at every opportunity to provide the movie with a little intellectual heft, but right now it's not all that certain that he will get to reprise his role as Johnny Blaze in the sequel that Avi Arad and the film's other producers have already started talking about.  Ghost Rider may get burned by the critics (who don't take kindly to being snubbed) and still do well with a mid-winter audience jonesing for big action films.  At least retailers have the excellent new Ghost Rider: Road to Damnation graphic novel by Garth Ennis (and Clayton Crain) to recommend to customers intrigued by the film.

On the toy front Ghost Rider is just the appetizer in the four-course meal of movie-related toys from Hasbro.  Three of the four courses are Marvel-based and Spider-Man 3, which opens on May 4th is clearly the main course based on the property's track record, which makes it second to only Star Wars as a merchandising vehicle for toys of all kinds. 

The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which opens on June 15th, has potential, but sandwiched in between Spidey and Hasbro's fourth major offering, Transformers, which opens July 4th means that the FF toys will face major competition on the toy shelves throughout the summer and into the holiday season. 

While the odds are in favor of Spider-Man 3 or Transformers as the top toy license of the year, right now it appears that Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Miller's 300, which opens on March 9th, will move more graphic novels than any other film (see 'For Dark Horse, 2007 is Miller Time').  Early reviews of 300 have varied from raves (on IGN) to pans based on the reaction of the European press at a screening at the Berlin Film Festival, but Warner Bros. has mounted an extensive advertising campaign and the film, which was shot in front of a green screen (like Sin City), offers visuals that are often startlingly close to those in Miller's graphic novel; and the film presents enough stylish violence to incite the kind of interest that should lead to book purchases.  The film's March opening ensures a fall DVD release, which as was the case for Sin City and V for Vendetta, should also result in another round of interest in the graphic novel.

The latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (entitled 'TMNT') film opens on March 23rd.  The fourth Turtles film, TMNT is the first in fourteen years and the first to be wholly computer-animated.  The new film has got a 'PG' rating due to the level of violence and should skew a little older than previous efforts -- and it will be accompanied by a slew of toys from Playmates.

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse, a nostalgic tag team of 60-minute exploitation films that includes a zombie film from Rodriguez and a slasher flick from Tarantino debuts on April 6 -- and NECA, which specializes in creating action figures and other collectibles from 'R' rated movies and marketing them to older collectors, has a variety of standard and large size figures based on Grindhouse (see 'NECA to Grind Out Horror Figures').