Don Post lost the Star Wars license a number of years ago,
something they'd held since 1977. Bit sad really as part of the reason for this
is believed to be that Lucasfilm expect licensees to pay a large portion of
licensing fees up front (as opposed to it all being spread across the
production). Don Post, like a number of other companies, "lost" a lot of money
on Episode 1, which from a marketing perspective didn't sell anywhere near
as much as people believed it would (Dorling Kindersley almost went bust on the
book side!). The Phantom Menace just didn't have the quality of characters
present in the original trilogy and from a helmet perspective, I cannot think of
one "must have" Phantom Menace helmet. It wasn't until Attack of the
Clones that we saw a collectible helmet form the new movies - and that was
too late for Don Post.
So after producing helmets for the Star Wars movies since 1977,
Don Post left the license around 2000 and were "replaced" by Rubies. Rubies
business model was based around the low-end of the market so apart from
reissuing some of the original DP helmets under their own banner (effectively
purchasing the Don Post moulds), Rubies concentrated on cheaper masks, helmets
and kids costumes. A few years later Master Replicas entered the market and
picked up the license to produce the high-end collectors helmets with some great
results. Master Replicas in turn lost their license in 2008, which was then picked up by
e-FX, of which there is much hope........
However I'm jumping ahead of myself, back to Don Post. starting
with budget helmets in 1977 of Darth Vader, Stormtrooper, Chewy, 3PO etc. etc.,
by the 1990's Don Post had opted for a range based on 3 price points:
