Ancillaries

Here's a toy company that really makes animation work.

Licenses to “Star Wars,” “The Simpsons,” DC and Marvel’s superheroes, and its own films like “The Lego Movie” have helped make Lego the world’s largest toy company when it comes to revenue and profits, beating Mattel and Hasbro.

At least that’s for the first six months of the year.

Lego attributed much of this year’s success so far to “The Lego Movie,” which helped boost sales by 11% during the first six months of the year, the company said.

“The Lego Movie,” which was produced for $60 million, went on to earn more than $468 million worldwide, and was backed by 17 playsets, minifigures, a videogame, theme park attraction, and slew of branded merchandise. The film is also available on homevideo platforms. ...

The cash flow from merchandise sales constituted a nice pile of money.

[Lego's] net profit in the period was up 14 percent compared with the first half of 2013, at 2.7 billion kroner ($480 million), on sales of 11.5 billion kroner.

Sounds like the cartoon business is helping Lego's profit margins. Small wonder that companies keep crowding into the cartoon business.