Variety has details on Marvel's expanded merchandise programme for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and it sounds like Groot is going to be at the forefront of that. The company will first show off products from the highly anticipated movie on Monday at the Licensing Expo 2016 in Las Vegas, so chances are that means we're going to start seeing some official material from the sequel soon.
Groot toys exceeded expectations in 2014 (Funko's "Dancing Groot" remains the best selling Pop! of all-time), so he's going to be central to this campaign. The overarching plan though is to use this to help make Guardians of the Galaxy a tentpole franchise in the eyes of consumers. "As affinity and awareness for the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ franchise and its characters continues to grow by leaps and bounds, we are building out a much larger merchandising program to meet the increasing demand from fans," said Paul Gitter, senior VP of licensing for Marvel at Disney Consumer Products.
"Guardians fills an unoccupied space in our portfolio of Marvel brands, as it features an unlikely group of heroes who come together as a unique family," he continued. "Plus its blending of music, humor, and sci-fi adventure is unlike anything we have seen before. The response from retailers and licensees after a recent event we had to showcase key story points and characters from the new film was even stronger than expected, so we know that there will be lots of interest. It will be a much broader line [than 2014] expanding beyond collectors to include kids and male/female fan."
As for why they're now going to be focusing so much on Groot, it sounds like Marvel and Disney were surprised by the response to the character the first time around. "Our key learning is that we had to chase products featuring Groot and we want to be sure we are ready for the excitement across multiple age and demo segments who want to bring home Groot in a variety of innovative products." It appears as if Groot will still be tiny when we see him again in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, so t's easy to imagine toys featuring the cute talking tree selling out fast next year...
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