Star Wars

Today’s topic may be for many of you an extremely interesting subject, mainly because Star Wars has, since its beginnings, gathered millions of fans. What’s most interesting about Star Wars is that apart from being a pop culture phenomenon it was an enormous innovation in the realm of merchandising, becoming a huge business.

            Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise involved on a film series created by George Lucas and produced by 20^th Century Fox. The first film was released on 1977 and was then followed due to its success by to more films becoming a trilogy. After 16 years a new prelude trilogy was released. Last year The Walt Disney Company acquired the rights to buy Lucasfilm and announced they would produce three new films, releasing the first one in 2015.  This is a clear example of how big the business has become and how it continues to obtain profits year after year.

            When it comes to numbers, Star Wars raised up to 5510 millions of dollars approximately within the 6 movies, becoming the third most successful movie of the history after James Bond and Harry Potter. Another important figure is that only the first movie gained up to 100 million dollars in only 3 months time and every year the Star Wars product produce up to 9000 millions of dollars around the world.

            The film series has generated a merchandising innovation it has launched a media franchise outside the film series called the Expanded Universe which includes absolutely any imaginable product; books, TV series, videogames, comics, clothes, role play games, busts, costumes, statues, toys, replica props, etc. Even the famous Lego Company has its Star Wars figures or the well-known Monopoly game created a special Star Wars board game and there even exists a Trivial based on Star Wars questions. Even Adidas created a shoe and clothes collection dedicated to the saga! If you would like to search for any product, definitely check out the following page: http://starwars.com/shop/ .

            But how is Star Wars related to tourism? The famous Tatooine village is indeed in the South of Tunisia in a place known as Matmata where you can easily recognize many of the amazing places where Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker left their mark. You can either go on a tour of the main Star Wars sets such as the amazing Sidi Bouhlel Canyon where R2D2 was captured by the Jwas or the Chott El Jerid lake where they also filmed many film exterior and even visit the underground houses where the Lars lived. A handful of families continue to dwell in these subterranean houses, others are abandoned and some even have been recycling business as unusual as the Hotel Sidi Driss, whose guests do night like a true Jedi, in fact, the hotel became the house of the Lars where Luke Skywalker grew up.

All of this amazing insights take the traveller not only to the most famous film sagas of all time scenarios but also lets them encounter with spectacular landscapes and an amazing culture.

           

It is truly amazing the huge business that has raised from the film sagas not only in terms of merchandising but also in tourism since many tourists visit the south of Tunisia and are definitely interested to visit the film sets due to its amazing history and Star Wars magnetism. 

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