By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Those ubiquitous Angry Birds flew from the mobile screen to the toy store, hooked up with Hollywood, and are headed back to the digital world thanks to the telepod. Hasbro’s Angry Bird telepods were a big attraction last weekend at San Diego’s Comic-Con, an annual gathering of 130,000 comic and entertainment enthusiasts, with fans lining up to preview new Transformers-themed bird figurines containing miniscule codes that can be read by tablets. The Angry Birds Transformers telepods, featuring “Autobirds” and “Deceptihogs,” is due out on Oct. 15, spinning off the success of Paramount Pictures’ June box office hit, “Transformers: Age of Extinction.” Licensed toys have become a key to extending the entertainment content revenue stream, with U.S. retail sales in 2013 of $5.3 billion, according to research company The NPD Group. In the first quarter of 2014, the top licensed toys included Disney’s princess lines and “Frozen” toys, which helped Disney bring in $885 million in consumer products revenue, about 8 percent of the company’s overall revenue during that time.
