The Force Awakens was produced by Walt Disney Motion Pictures with a budget of £306 million. Directed by J.J. Abrams, it starred original Star Wars actors Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher alongside new actors John Boyega and Daisy Ridley. An extensive marketing campaign included appearances on talk shows and a viral trailer. The film went on to become the highest grossing film of 2015, making over $2 billion worldwide.

1. STARWARSVII:
THE FORCE AWAKENS
A case study:

2. It was produced by Walt Disney Motion Pictures.
The budget was £306MILLION.
The vice president of Walt Disney Motion Pictures is
Dave Hollis; the company have made other films such as
John Carter (Andrew Stanton, 2012) andTomorrowland
(Brad Bird, 2015.)

3. JJ Abrams directed this, he has also directed Mission
Impossible 3 (2006), Cloverfield (2008), and StarTrek
Into Darkness (2013).
35mm cameras and 65mm IMAX cameras were used to
film this film. CGI was used for certain aspects of the film
to make it seem more futuristic (ie. the spaceships
flying, the lasers, etc.)
The film stars Harrison Ford, Mark Hamil, and Carrie
Fisher (who have both appeared in previous StarWars
films ) as well as John Boyega (who appeared in Attack
the Block) and Daisy Ridley (who appeared in
Casualty and Mr Selfridge).

4. Marketing:
■ JJ Abrams invited some fans to a secret StarWars Celebration Symphony, complete with a
dazzling fireworks display
■ Appearances on talk shows and late night television
■ Trailer debuted live via at a StarWars convention
– Millions of people stopped what they were doing to watch it
– Social media exploded with mentions of SW
Results:
■ Many people bought tickets even if they were on the fence about how good it’d be as they
didn't’t want to be left out- it grossed $2.068BILLION worldwide, making it the highest
grossing film of 2015
■ In the week leading to its release,TFA had 4.78MILLION mentions onTwitter and 364MILLION
YouTube views

5. Synergy
Examples of partnerships withTFA that show synergy:
Covergirl & Max Factor
Subway
Duracell
Verizon
HasbroToys
HP
Facebook
Google
Build-A-Bear

6. Convergence
Cross-Media
■ StarWars App on the app stores
■ Lego StarWarsTFA video game
■ Comic books and novels
■ Clothing and accessories
■ Toys and collectables
■ Posters and cardboard cut-outs
Technological
■ Phone app-brings together games
trailers and access to buy tickets for
the movie.
■ Alternate reality hologram where the
consumer has to scan a poster and a
Stormtrooper’s hologram will appear
■ Hashtag ‘#forcefriday’ which allows
the audience to access content that
just links to star wars

7. Release
■ TFA was released in saturation in the US on Dec 14th 2015
■ In the UK, it was premiered in London on Dec 16th
■ It featured inVue, Odeon and IMAX
■ The target audience was Males aged 25-45 as they were older and so probably spent
their childhood watching the StarWars Franchise.
– It was released in 2D, 3D & IMAX
– It was released on DVD, Blu-Ray and also on ITunes later on