Suvudu Universe

On Monday Habro held an it’s quarterly conference call on its investor relations website.

In his prepared remarks, Hasbro President and CEO Brian Goldner said,

“As I mentioned earlier, the Boys category had difficult comparisons with 2012 and did not grow in 2013. Despite growth in NERF in the Boys category and in TRANSFORMERS during a non-movie year, the declines in entertainment-backed properties BEYBLADE and MARVEL were not offset by growth in our two Franchise Brands.

Within the Boys category, we continue to develop innovative multi-tiered immersive experiences while also leveraging film and television entertainment.

2014 is the first of a robust multi-year entertainment slate for our Boys brands. The fourth feature film in the TRANSFORMERS franchise, Transformers: Age of Extinction, is scheduled for release and will feature all new characters and storylines. Marvel Studios is releasing two new feature films, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier and an all-new franchise in the making, Guardians of the Galaxy. Sony Pictures is releasing The Amazing Spiderman 2. Finally Lucasfilm is unveiling all new Star Wars Rebels television programming late in 2014.“

During the question and answer period he was asked about Disney owned brands Marvel and Lucasfilm.

.”..What we are seeing overall around the Disney brands Marvel and Lucasfilm particularly if we look last year while Marvel wasn’t up overall, Marvel brands where up in Latin America and Asia-Pacific. That has a lot to do that we are expanding the footprint of brands such as Marvel as we go out around the world. Some of the innovations that we are putting into those brands such as the Titan Heroes series which enables us to get after the emerging market consumer in a more significant way…

As we get into late 2014 around the launch of Star Wars tv series and into late 2015 as we get into the launch of the Star Wars movie, obviously we would expect that Star Wars would follow a similar pattern. Obviously the strength of the brand combined with strength and scope and scale of the Walt Disney Company.”

Not a lot was revealed about Hasbro’s view of the Star Wars brand this year, but it is encouraging to see Star Wars Rebels lumped in with the new Transformers film and the Marvel films.  Hopefully the Rebels line gets strong support from both Lucasfilm and Hasbro.

SOURCE: Hasbro