Making Creator Headlines · Page 4
Toei's Long-Lived Characters Are Asked to Learn Some New Business Models
· New York time
Toei CEO Fumio Yoshimura says the Japanese studio is working with local partners to expand its established intellectual property globally, while exploring generative AI and gaming. He outlined the approach at Taiwan Creative Content Fest. The 75-year-old company is giving its legacy characters the sort of career development plan usually reserved for new hires. The studio launched a $2 billion Toei New Wave plan in 2023, Deadline reports. Yoshimura's comments place local partnerships alongside technology and games as parts of a broader expansion strategy. For a company with established properties, the attraction is that familiar characters can travel into new markets and formats without having to introduce themselves from scratch. Local partners can bring knowledge of audiences in the places a global studio hopes to reach. Games offer a different way to engage with a franchise, while generative AI represents an area the company says it is exploring. Those are areas of innovation, not evidence that a particular production has already adopted a specific tool. The business challenge is familiar even if the vocabulary is new: how to extend a valuable property without making it feel like an endless licensing meeting. Toei's characters have outlasted several waves of entertainment technology. Management would now like them to be equally comfortable in the next one, preferably with a local partner and a game controller nearby.
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