A lot of nervous Hollywood executives are hoping that the final installment of George Lucas's Star Wars saga, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, which opens on Thursday, will put an end to 12 straight weeks of declining box office (as compared with 2004) and jumpstart Tinseltown's summer season.  With box office revenues down a substantial 7% from last year, movie industry execs are taking heart from the strong reviews the final Star Wars episode is earning (85% positive according to the Rotten Tomatoes Website) and hoping that this latest Star Wars film lives up to the hype.  Revenge of the Sith will open in more than 3,700 theaters, but the key number in this age of multi-plexes is the number of prints -- and there will be more than 9,000 copies of the new Star Wars film in theaters this weekend.  While few industry experts expect Revenge of the Sith to better Spider-Man's three-day weekend total of $114.84 million, many think it will be able to best The Matrix Reloaded's $134.28 million four-day total.

Meanwhile a furious behind-the-scenes struggle is being waged between movie studios to secure one of five coveted 'trailer' spots preceding Revenge of the Sith showings.  Only Lucasfilm has the clout to limit the number of theatrical trailers before showings and convince theater owners to accept this 'voluntary' ban on excessive promotion -- and only 20th Century Fox, which distributes Revenge of Sith, is guaranteed a spot in the trailer rotation, and Fox has decided to attach a preview of the Marvel Comics-based Fantastic Four film to the Sith prints, so the FF will be the only film previewed in all locations.  Fox will also include a trailer for its other big summer film, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in a batch of previews sent to theaters for possible inclusion in Revenge of the Sith screenings.  Theater managers will have at least eight trailers from which to choose representing such films as Paramount's The War of the Worlds, Warner Bros. Batman Begins, Universal's Cinderella Man, Sony's Stealth, Dreamworks' The Island, Disney's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and New Line's Wedding Crashers.  Some studios are cutting their typically 2 and one-half minute trailers to one-minute in an effort to get theater owners to run them.  If you go to see Revenge of the Sith this weekend, you might want to pay attention to the number of previews that accompany the film and whether they take up more than twelve and a half minutes.

Back at the Skywalker Ranch the folks at Lucasfilm are counting the proceeds from what could be the last great wave of Star Wars merchandising -- a tsunami of licensing revenue that has swelled the company's total take to more than $9 billion since that fateful day back in the 1970s when George Lucas persuaded 20th Century Fox to give him all the merchandising rights for the Star Wars films.  Early indications are that Revenge of the Sith products may fare better in the market than their over-hyped predecessors from Episodes I & II.  Sony Classical's original soundtrack recording, which includes an exclusive DVD, debuted in Billboard's Top Ten, and Dark Horse's graphic novel adaptation of the new film is already the number two graphic novel of the year (in dollar terms) in bookstore sales, trailing only Frank Miller's Sin City.Vol. #1.  A recent Star Wars: Clone Wars marathon on the Cartoon Network saw ratings jump 138% and earned the Network's top 'tweens' (9-14) delivery of the week (up 141%).

Hasbro's new line of Star Wars toys, which includes authentic recreations of original 1970s action figures for collectors as well as an array of figures, vehicles and role-playing toys from the new film, appears to be doing well, but the final verdict on its fate won't widely known until Hasbro releases it financial statements for the year. 

Star Wars promotional tie-ins won't be quite as ubiquitous as they were during the frenzy surrounding the release of Episode I, but Episode III is becoming hard to avoid and a worldwide agreement with Kellogg's has resulted in Star Wars cereal, Star Wars Pop-Tarts, Star Wars fruit snacks and Star Wars Fudge Shoppe Cookies, all which will help fans get promotional merchandise such as R2-D2 cereal bowls, light-up SaberSpoons, and limited editions Star Wars character cookie jars.

But the award for the most innovative Star Wars merchandise tie-in for Revenge of the Sith has to go to the first-ever officially licensed Star Wars PCs from Alienware.  These computers come loaded with exclusive content such as movie soundtracks, wallpapers, and desktop skins and are available in two versions: 'Dark Side and Light Side, which feature exhilarating case designs of the evil Imperial forces or the embattled Rebel Alliance.'