To be clear, I'm being a pedant about this because
I hate when people try to deny facts clearly presented to them, especially people who can only ever see the world through the lens of an American or European, which people might not be doing, but is often the case when it comes to examining media and its relative popularity with a worldwide audience. I never thought Pokemon being big guaranteed Pikachu's success, previous Pokemon movies certainly were not, and I think those who thought it was the guarantor are pretty silly. My belief was solely founded on the hype I saw from, well, EVERYONE, and it was clearly just me being deceived by my own hype for it.
Try to tell the entire history of Spiderman from 1963 to present without using the Avengers. You can't. Try to explain the history of the Xmen without mentioning Dr. Doom. You can't. Try to explain what the Justice League is without talking about Aquaman. impossible.
And yet numerous movies, cartoons, and other spinoffs unrelated to the comics
have done that. And THAT, my friend, is where a huge hunk of sales come from. Not comics fans, but people who watched Adam West Batman or the cartoon/Raimi Spider-Man.
you have to be living in a cave to believe either one of these is true.
I grew up in the 90s and early 00s. It's absolutely true. I had to explain to my Uncle, who was a big fan of the old Wonder Woman and Batman TV shows, what DC Comics was. This is lived experience.
NOW you're trolling. Disney is far more well known as an entity than Winnie the Pooh will ever be. Disney is ubiquitous at this point. Everyone everywhere knows what Disney world is.
Not trolling, being honest. That's not to say this is true in MOST territories. But there are many people in the world who know a given media franchise without knowing who owns them.
the TV revenue number from star trek if you click the link is from an article printed from 1998. There MAY have been a few significant series released since then, and this doesn't factor in syndication or streaming revenue. Hell, DVD wasn't even a thing when that article was printed for most of the US.
I did a google search to see if there were any more recent articles, twice (once before my first reply, once just now to double check), and... well, there aren't, and if there are, they're not easily accessible. It isn't the article writers' fault more recent data is not available.
nowhere close. Pokemon moves video games and no one disputes that, but "largest media franchise" requires you move content in print, television, AND theatres, and Pokemon is completely incapable of moving the needle against something like Star Wars, Marvel, Star Trek, etc in any of these categories.
Pokemon moves more content in areas Star Wars, Marvel and Star Trek (lol Star Trek) don't themselves. And who is the person who decided that you need to be successful in specific arenas, but that others don't count for some equally arbitrary reason?
Our fatal mistake was thinking that the huge interest in the initial trailer would translate to interest in the movie, not just going viral because of the novelty of fluffy-ass Pikachu and friends in the real world but failing to get butts into seats
Yep, that's... definitely part of it. D:
