“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” merchandise will become available to fans in September with a Friday global launch event Star Wars Force II, Disney and Lucasfilm announced Thursday.
Toys, collectibles, books, apparel and more will go on sale beginning at 12:01 a.m. on September 1, with stores around the world opening for a weekend-long celebration of all things Star Wars.
“The first Star Wars Force Friday event was truly unique, uniting fans across five continents in an unprecedented global live unboxing event ahead of thousands of midnight openings at retail,” said Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of Disney consumer products and interactive media. “We’re excited to confirm that Star Wars Force Friday is back for ‘The Last Jedi’. Plans for this year’s world-wide event are top secret but expect something befitting the excitement around the next episode of the Star Wars saga.”
Star Wars fans around the globe embraced Force Friday in 2015, with hundreds of thousands turning up to stores at midnight to be the first to get their hands on merchandise from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
Toys from the new line were revealed via a global live-stream unboxing event that unfolded over 18 hours, 15 different cities and 12 countries, attracting millions of views on YouTube. Fans took to social media to share their experiences with nearly 3 billion Twitter impressions about the events, using #ForceFriday.
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is the highest grossing movie of all time domestically and that success was mirrored at retail. Star Wars was the number one toy property in the U.S. for 2016 and 2015, and that during the week of Force Friday, $1 for every $11 spent on toys was on a Star Wars item. Additionally, the popularity of the movie propelled Star Wars onto the top ten toy list for both boys and girls for the first time ever in 2015.