Along with movie tickets, interest for Avengers merchandise at its peak in India

Image: Wikimedia Commons/William Tung

It is not only the movie tickets for Avengers Endgame that are seeing strong demand, but interest for the film’s merchandise among its fan-base is also at its peak. From mugs to apparel to pins and badges, consumers are ready to grab anything as a memorabilia for the 22nd offering from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Online retail stores like Myntra, Redwolf and the Souled Store, that are offering Marvel merchandise have seen a spike in sales, courtesy the release of Avengers Endgame. But, the increase in sales was witnessed a month before the film hit the Indian theatres.

Talking to Moneycontrol, Vedang Patel, Co-founder and Director, Souled Store, said, “It (release of Avenger Endgame)  is one of the biggest opportunities from a merchandising point of view. I think this movie will be one of the biggest releases of the year or/and an all-time big release as well. Because of the hype around the movie, there has been a 500 percent spike in the demand and I can see this continuing for another month.”

Souled Store, that claims to be the largest licensee when it comes to official merchandise, released a limited edition t-shirt, only around 500 in number, and it was sold out in a couple of minutes.

However, the craze for the film or superheroes or Marvel is not restricted to urban markets. “Wih the ease of consuming content online courtesy, Netflix and Amazon, the whole propaganda of superheroes has Tier III cities, and someone sitting in a small town is now a fan of Iron Man. That is driving business because it is not just localised to urban metros, but it cuts across. The same thing is valid for content curation in general, leaving our business to thrive. This month, superheroes, Game of Thrones, and even IPL merchandise is doing well.”

According to a 2018 report by ESP, a Group M company, even though the market for licensed merchandise in India is huge – as big as Rs 87,000 crore plus– the share of Indian brands is less than 10 percent in the licensing and merchandising (L&M) pie.

In fact, Hollywood and American pop culture takes the centre stage in this industry, making India an important market for every superhero film.

Merchandising stores also concur that superhero genre is an important category for them to fuel growth. And it is superhero movies that have resulted in mass reach of these comic characters who have been into existence for a long time, but became the talk of the town only in the last decade.

The superhero fan craze is only going to get bigger and the proof of this is the box office success of this genre. Avengers Endgame has sold more tickets for advance booking in India than any other Hindi film, and it looks like the opening day collection will set another record by the Marvel movie. As of now, Avengers Infinity War is the highest Hollywood grosser in India.