Star Wars Turns 50; The Preorder Opens Today

According to Variety, Disney is turning the 50th anniversary of Star Wars into a yearlong 2027 celebration: a restored 1977 re-release in February, Hasbro preorders opening today, seven Lego sets on January 1, an Adidas collection, a Mars snack line, planetarium screenings at Cosm, and an 18,000-square-foot "Star Wars: The Experience" exhibition in Philadelphia.

Read the calendar, because the calendar is the story. January 1: the Lego sets. February 13: the exhibition opens in Philadelphia. February 19: the 1977 film returns to theaters, for the first time in IMAX. All of 2027: the M&M's. The movie that started it all is one line item on the anniversary schedule, scheduled between a snack portfolio and an 18,000-square-foot behind-the-scenes exhibit the company bills as the franchise's largest ever.

The "centerpiece" is a re-release. In 1977, the film was the event. In 2027, it is the anchor of a rollout: restored, IMAX-ified, 4DX-ified, a fifty-year-old movie treated like a product that needed a format update. The partner list reads like a licensing summit. Lego, which is marking 30 years of its own partnership. Hasbro, whose original Kenner figures "helped transform Star Wars into a merchandising powerhouse," per the release, which is the most honest sentence in it. Adidas. Mars. Even the snacks got a brand refresh.

The math on "nearly 50 years to the day" is worth a moment: Star Wars: Starfighter, directed by Shawn Levy and starring Ryan Gosling, opens May 28, 2027, against the original's May 25, 1977 release date. Fifty years and three days. The franchise is not celebrating its age. It is celebrating its supply chain.

The tickets for the exhibition go on sale today. The figures go on preorder today. The film gets 4DX. That is the anniversary, and the order of operations tells you where the loyalty is.

YOUR TURN: Is a film's 50th anniversary the film's anniversary, or the anniversary of the first tie-in?