As the movie Pearl Harbor opens on Friday, a multitude of companies are grasping at its coattails in hopes of siphoning off some free publicity. The Walt Disney Co licensed only two Pearl Harbor movie products, a Hamilton pilot watch and Ray Ban sunglasses, but that has not stopped the onslaught of World War II merchandise.
This month, video game designers introduced new titles, filmmakers released documentaries, magazines put out special editions and publishers reissued dozens of books.
PHOTO: AP
But of all the companies looking to tap the "Greatest Generation" sentiment to help sell its products, few have as much riding on it as Hasbro, the world's second-biggest toy maker.
This week, the company released a new line of Pearl Harbor-themed GI Joe figures. The timing of course is pure coincidence -- wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
"Is there a movie coming out?" joked Brian Goldner, the president of Hasbro's US toy group, who then insisted, with a straight face, that the toy release was timed to Memorial Day, not the movie.
The push to revive GI Joe is coming at a critical moment for Hasbro, which has posted large losses for the last two quarters. As its financial problems became apparent last year, the company announced it would seek to become less dependent on volatile entertainment properties like "Pokemon" and Star Wars and try to rejuvenate the brands and characters it has long owned, including GI Joe.
Introduced in 1964, GI Joe was the first action figure and proved that companies could sell dolls to boys, so long as they called them something else. Joe began as a young boy's version of Barbie, equipped with a gun instead of a hairbrush and a Jeep instead of a Dream House.
As the fashion doll fueled Mattel's early growth, the warrior doll helped build Hasbro in the 1960s. Although Barbie remains both a best selling toy and the foundation of Mattel's business, GI Joe no longer does the same for Hasbro.
In recent years, GI Joe has been battered on all sides by competitors. Power Rangers, from Bandai and Saban Consumer Products, has been a perennial best seller, as have World Wrestling Federation figures made by Jakks Pacific and Star Wars figures manufactured by Hasbro. Last year, GI Joe was only the eighth best selling action figure.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS