Summary

• Disney's reported Star Wars profits may not be accurate due to omitted production costs, according to Forbes analysis.
• Star Wars is not just a movie franchise; its success also lies in TV shows, books, comics, and merchandise.
• While box office alone may not make Star Wars as profitable for Disney, the franchise's diverse revenue streams contribute to its success.

Disney's figures may be a fiction, but Star Wars had made $12 billion in profits, but analysis suggests those figures weren't entirely accurate.

Forbes broke down box office takings since 2012, and published an article claiming that "Disney ‘Star Wars’ Box-Office Profits Fail To Cover Cost Of Buying Lucasfilm." This article essentially argued that Disney had massaged the figures in their recent report, published by the Securities & Exchange Commission; careful analysis indicated they'd deliberately avoided factoring production costs into the profit calculation. So how profitable has Star Wars really been for Disney?

Star Wars Box Office Takings Aren't Enough To Make The Franchise Profitable For Disney

Box office takings have been healthy, but it will take time to make that back

It's actually very difficult to calculate how much profit a movie release has made, in part because of the ing practices taken by studios; while they love announcing high box office takings, they also use ing practices to reduce taxes and expenses. David Prowse played Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi, and he never received residuals because - according to Lucasfilm's ing - the film never made a profit. That's despite it grossing $475 million on a $32 million budget back in 1983.

The best approach is to take the estimated production costs as an expense, and deduct them from the worldwide box office. This will only generate a ballpark figure, of course, because theaters keep some of those takings (and it's not possible to standardize, because each country's practices are subtly different in this respect). Here's how the Star Wars movies play out according to this, with all figures adjusted for inflation:

It's important to note that the budgets are only estimated, because studios seldom announce them, and there's particular debate over the total cost of Solo: A Star Wars Story's reshoots. What's more, marketing costs are unquantifiable, but will also eat into these profits; Solo, for example, is believed to have needed to gross $500 million back in 2018 to break even (over $610 million factoring in inflation). Still, this does Forbes' analysis; Star Wars box office alone isn't enough to have made a profit for Disney.

Star Wars Has Become A Major Streaming Phenomenon

But how do you measure the shows' success?

But here's the problem with this kind of calculation; there's a lot more to Star Wars than just the movies. Although Disney initially canceled Star Wars: The Clone Wars, since then there's been a steady stream of both animated and live-action shows - especially since 2019, with the launch of Disney+. By May 2023, By The Numbers calculated that Disney+ subscribers had access to over 12,000 minutes of Star Wars content - and, incredibly, over 10,000 of those minutes were in TV show format. It's no exaggeration to say Star Wars has morphed into a TV franchise.

The importance of Star Wars was perfectly illustrated in December 2023, when IMDb published a ranking of the year's top ten shows. The year's two live-action Star Wars TV shows both appeared in the top 10, with Ahsoka ranking second and The Mandalorian season 3 ranking fifth. Even more striking, though, was the fact only one other Disney+ TV show appeared on the list, and the MCU was entirely absent. Star Wars' is Disney+ biggest hit - at least as far as original content is concerned.

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to accurately measure the financial value of these TV shows. This is because traditional approaches don't work for streaming services; their success is measured in new subscribers, viewership, and the retention of older subscribers. It's becoming clear this general approach isn't really paying off for Disney, which is pivoting back towards the big screen, and Lucasfilm is now "ramping up" work on the movies once again. Still, Star Wars TV will continue to be important, with Ahsoka season 2 in the works and Lucasfilm recently announcing vacancies for animators on an unknown project.

Star Wars Tie-Ins Are Another Revenue Stream For Disney

Looking beyond the movies & TV shows... to the comics & books

Even this is only scratching the surface of Star Wars' value to Disney, because the House of Mouse has continued the George Lucas tradition of publishing a wealth of tie-ins - ranging from novels to reference books. According to Wookipedia, the official Star Wars wiki, there have been a staggering 246 new fiction books since Disney rebooted the canon in April 2014. Meanwhile, publishing deals allow reissues of older "Legends" books, with regular audiobook releases to boot.

Looking at the publication rate, though, it's easy to see that many of these releases are associated with the latest Hollywood blockbuster. There have been no tie-in novels for any of the recent Disney+ TV shows, which means the shift away from the big screen has hurt publishing. Matters have been helped, however, by a focus on a major transmedia initiative set during the High Republic Era, centuries before the Skywalker saga.

Looking beyond the books, Marvel Comics regained the license for publishing Star Wars comics by late 2014 (although other publishers also release regular content). Since January 2015, there hasn't been a single week without at least one Star Wars comic, and there have been annual "Comic Book Events" too - ranging from "Vader Down" to the more recent "Dark Droids." Unfortunately, again, there are no figures to indicate how profitable these other mediums are for Lucasfilm; it's worth noting Marvel is also owned by Disney, making sales highly profitable for the House of Mouse.

Star Wars Merchandise Is Also A Crucial Part Of Its Profitability

Star Wars is the world's strongest brand

In February 2023, Brand Finance ran the numbers and calculated that Star Wars is officially the world's biggest toy brand (albeit with Fisher-Price catching up). This was the first time Star Wars had been ranked as a toy brand, and Brand Finance calculated it was worth $262 million in this sphere alone - a calculation that factors in marketing investment, stakeholder equity, and business performance. Two of the other top ten brands have licensing agreements with Star Wars, meaning there's substantial crossover too.

Circling back, then, the basic analysis by Forbes is correct; going by box office alone, Star Wars has not made a profit for Disney. But that's a very narrow perspective indeed, because there are a staggering number of different revenue streams. Unfortunately, by design, many of these are almost impossible to estimate, meaning there's no real way to calculate Disney's profits from Star Wars. What is clear, though, is that - given the sheer number of revenue streams - there is a substantial profit, albeit probably not so high as Disney's figures.

That said, it's also easy to see why Disney want Star Wars back on the big screen. Disney+ hasn't really worked out the way Disney hoped, meaning the House of Mouse understandably want the box office takings back. A Hollywood blockbuster also has a massive impact on tie-ins, as seen from the burst of new books associated with each release, and the same is surely true for merchandise. The sooner Star Wars is back in theaters, the better for Disney.