Tim Burton's 're-imagining' of Planet of the Apes reinvigorated the flagging summer box office trends by taking in almost $70 million during its first three days. Led by POTA, the weekend box office surged some 18% ahead of last year's total for the same weekend. Planet of the Apes scored the best opening weekend total for any film so far this year, and the second-best ever -- trailing only Jurassic Park II: The Lost World's three-day total of $72.1 million. POTA's triumphant opening virtually guarantees that there will be sequels to this sequel. A franchise has been reestablished, but what about merchandising opportunities? The film's strong performance with older male viewers (62% of the opening weekend audience was over 25, while 57% were male) should make a strong fit with the demographics of many pop culture stores that cater to collectors. Many retailers have been a little gun shy when it comes to major movie properties, but it's still not to late to take advantage of Apes since most all of the following items are available for reorder in reasonable quantities, so that retailers can gauge the interest among their store's clientele with minimal risk.
ICv2's earlier survey of retailers (see 'An Early Read on POTA Merchandise') found that Dark Horse's comic 'prequel' Planet of the Apes: The Human War was doing very well. Dark Horse also has a graphic novel format comic adaptation of the film that is also selling well. The best conventional book about the making of Tim Burton's film is Planet of the Apes: A Reimagining by Tim Burton, published by Newmarket Press and available in both trade paperback ($22.95) and hardcover ($34.95) editions (see 'BEA Report -- Movie and TV Books'). Harper Collins has published a novelization of the film by William T.Quick, which retails for $6.95, while fans who just don't like the modern version might well enjoy Planet of the Apes Revisited: The Behind the Scenes Story by Joe Russo and Edward Gross, which is published by St. Martins as a $19.95 trade paperback.
At press time Planet of the Apes trading cards from Topps, the same company that created the now highly-prized trading cards from the first series of POTA films, are still available both directly from Topps (in case increments) and from distributors (where accounts can order one box at a time).
Toys
Hasbro's initial offering of conventionally sized action figures didn't find much favor in the specialty market, but the recent release of five twelve-inch collector's figures should improve the situation. Because the audience for POTA skews older, Hasbro has aimed its latest POTA products at the collector market, and although the line has gotten some mass market distribution, the Hasbro POTA figures are not nearly as ubiquitous in the mass market as products from some of the other summer blockbusters like Shrek.
Dark Horse also has a number of POTA toy offerings ranging from the very inexpensive cardboard 'Pop-Out People' to high end sculptures (c.$150) and helmet replicas ($80-90).
