Paramount To Launch Another Toy-Inspired Film Franchise
Paramount Pictures, which has already seen phenomenal commercial success with turning Habro’s Transformers and G.I. Joe toy lines into motion picture franchises, plans to do it again with Beyblade.
A manga series known in Japan as Explosive Shoot Beyblade and originally serialized in CoroCoro Comic from January 2000 to December 2003, the series focuses on a group of kids who form teams with which they battle one another using Beyblades. The toy line itself was manufactured by Takaratomy, the creator of Transformers, and spawned a number of Beyblade television series. The toys were licensed to Hasbro in 2001 and have generated $2.5 billion dollars worldwide — this despite lackluster media criticism. It is anticipated that Beyblade will inherit much of the die-hard Transformers audience benefiting both.
The upcoming Beyblade film will be produced by Mary Parent through its Disruption Entertainment banner.
