The new Star Wars toys are here! The new Star Wars toys are here!

In his contract for Star Wars, George Lucas passed up an additional $500,000 directing fee in return for keeping licensing and merchandising rights for himself, a move that ultimately cost the studio billions and made the director one of the richest men in the galaxy. The demand for Star Wars toys was so high after the release of A New Hope that in 1977 Kenner, the company that Lucas granted an exclusive license to produce Star Wars toys, sold an empty box to kids for Christmas, promising Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and R2-D2 sometime in 1978.
And while the money no longer goes into George Lucas’ pocket—the bearded one sold his merchandising rights when he sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion in 2012—Star Wars toys are still big business. And with the opening of The Force Awakens only six months away, Disney has unveiled images of the first three official toys from the seventh entry in the Star Wars saga. The images premiered in Entertainment Weekly earlier today: